


The Age of Reason

by annanWaters



Category: Marvel (Comics), X-Men - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - 1970s, Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Alternate Universe - Roommates/Housemates, Awkward Conversations, Awkward First Times, Awkward Teen Sex, Bad Decisions, Bad Parenting, Bechdel Test Pass, Birthday Spanking, Bisexual Female Character, Desperation, Dorms, Emotional Repression, F/F, F/M, Female Friendship, First Impressions, Frenemies, Internalized Homophobia, NYC, New York City, Oral Sex, Pen Pals, Period-Typical Sexism, Public Sex, Recreational Drug Use, Rivalry, Roommates, Teenagers, safe sex, unsafe situations
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-27
Updated: 2018-07-29
Packaged: 2019-04-13 23:08:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 29,669
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14122833
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/annanWaters/pseuds/annanWaters
Summary: In her second semester at college, Jean gets a new roommate. They don't speak for a week. With two strong-minded young women sharing close quarters, that doesn't last, and before the semester's over, Jean and Emma forge an off-kilter companionship that they might not fully understand.Running the soccer clinic at her old boarding school promises to keep Jean busy for the summer. She finds enough time for a visit from Scott, though, and to answer the letters that Emma sends.Fall of sophomore year starts in a heatwave and ends in a mess.Nothing's ever simple.





	1. Until the Fall

_Like a bird on the wire, like a drunk in some old midnight choir,_  
_I have tried in my way to be free_

 

It was her second semester at Barnard when Jean met her– January 1975, mud and snow in the streets, New York City as cold as could be, and her new roommate seemed appropriate to the season. The girl who'd been there before had transferred or freaked out or something over the break, and when Jean signed into the dorm after Christmas upstate, the RA pulled her aside and told her she had a new roommate coming in a couple of days. So she'd gone up to the room, one side bare except for a steamer trunk occupying the desk, and put her stuff away, knowing only the girl's name: Emma Frost.

She arrived just in time for classes to start, and from the moment she turned the doorknob she'd dominated the room. Not that Emma was loud or aggressive, exactly: she just took up all available mental space. Hauling one truly enormous suitcase, she'd stepped onto the dingy linoleum of their room, cast a look over it, and nodded. That was all, just a look, and she'd seen everything. Of course, to be honest, that was all it took: there was nothing much to see in their room, a cramped affair, two twin beds jammed up alongside two identical desks with built in bookshelves, two closets with sliding doors facing each other, two dressers built into the wall with mirrors recessed above them. The only difference between their sides was that Jean's had the sink tucked beside her closet while Emma's had a support pylon bulging into the room next to her desk.

Then Emma had turned that cool blue reasonable gaze on her, and Jean couldn't decide whether to shrink or sneer. In the event, she did neither, only raising her eyebrows in reply and returning to her class schedule. Later, she'd think that must have been _it,_ the right thing to do, the key to getting into Emma's head: she'd matched Emma and then dismissed her. Thin, blonde to the point of tow-headedness, extraordinarily self-possessed for a girl of just nineteen, Emma had an air about her that was hard to define: at that moment, though, she had practically vibrated with something like outrage.

"Charming little shack we've got. An improvement on the last hovel, though, I must say." She paused, just long enough to throw her suitcase onto the thin mattress of her bed and turn to give Jean another long look. In the pointedly indifferent drawl that screamed Massachusetts Bay, all long vowels and emotional neglect, she continued, "So, what was it you did to drive your last roomie off? Just out of curiosity, you understand."

Jean bridled, laying her schedule– French, a whole stack of pre-med science classes, and Shakespeare– aside with exaggerated care, and then focused on her new roommate. Plainly, she'd interpreted Jean's lack of reaction as a challenge; she'd find that Jean could keep it up.

"No idea. From what I hear, she cracked under the pressure and split for a convent. What about you?" A variety of suggestions arrayed themselves in her head, ready to use, but she wasn't going to escalate the situation. Not on the first day.

Emma shrugged, tossing her head in a movement which was almost a jerk. "I requested a transfer. The little parasite found out whose money's sending me here and decided we had to be the best of friends. I despise social climbers." That was begging the question if Jean had ever heard it, but she found more satisfaction in not rising to the bait. "And so here I am," she finished after a pause just long enough to invite Jean to ask, then flopped down alongside her suitcase. "Emma Frost. You must be Jane."

"Jean. Grey." She held the girl's gaze for a moment longer, then returned to her schedule. It was going to be tight, but she had known that during registration.

"Gushingly glad to make your acquaintance." And that had been the last thing either of them had said to the other for a week.

Emma, it turned out, was pre-law, utterly ruthless, and at least as dedicated to her goals as Jean was to her own. Once classes started, they fell into a sort of détente, both keeping irregular hours, sleeping little and interacting less. Both of them were taking full advantage of cross-enrollment at Columbia: Jean spent most of her time in labs– Emma, so far as she could tell, in the library or involved with one or another campus group. There were always handbills spilled across Emma's bed and tacked to her bulletin board, though she kept her desk in apple-pie order. When they were together in the room, one or both of them was either asleep or studying. Still, they couldn't avoid each other altogether, and there were a few things Jean noticed about her roommate, a few traces of who the girl underneath might be, if Jean were interested in excavating her.

She didn't talk much in general, but there were things she never talked about. Aside from that brief mention in her explanation, if that's what it had been, for her presence in Jean's room, she never talked about her family. She was equally silent on the topic of friends, most forms of recreation, and her life before January 1975. When she did speak, it was either direct and to the point, or a cunningly phrased dig or dismissal. The blonde absolutely threw herself into things which she cared about and utterly neglected anything which she didn't; she had no small talk, and no time to waste.

The few conversations they'd managed– over politics, the food in the dining hall, their professors– had felt like minefields, but there was something exhilarating about talking to Emma when she got impassioned. It wasn't even that they didn't agree on things, because they did– approaching from vastly different directions, they nonetheless had similar politics, for instance– but that they were equally driven about the things that they cared about, and the combination could sometimes be explosive. There were times when they got so wound up in a subject that even their agreements were violent, and it charged the air in their room like a thunderstorm.

Other times, though, Jean couldn't imagine why she would even try to engage with Emma Frost, or that there was anyone anywhere on Earth who could actually enjoy it. Apparently such people existed, though, since Emma went out practically every weekend, sometimes more than once, though the one time Jean had said something about it, the other girl had merely muttered something about keeping up with the Hamptons crowd and gone back to her poli-sci or behavioral psych book. She wasn't actually a bad roommate, though– she kept her stuff from spilling out of her side of the room, didn't bring anyone back in the middle of the night, had acceptable taste in music and food– and somehow they limped along together, doing the push-me-pull-you, until midterms.

The whole dorm went into lockdown around exams, as four hundred freshmen girls frantically sweated for grades, but spring midterms, as Jean learned, were their own beast. Spring break loomed on the other side, but so did the ever-present threat of washing out– once the midterm grades were posted, everyone would have a concrete idea of where she stood, and the pressure was making even Jean's level head swim. Which was probably why, after coming back from a very long late lab, she'd dropped down on her bed and dug the pretty enamel tin out from under it with Emma sitting right there at her desk. By then, Jean honestly had no idea what Emma thought of her, but she didn't exactly care, either.

So she opened the lid, pulled out a dime bag and a packet of papers, and said, "You mind if I open the window?"

Emma must have practiced that slow burn in the mirror, or maybe she'd had somebody to study. She turned in her chair, gaze sliding from the pot in Jean's hand up her to her eyes, and then she held the look until slowly, slowly starting to smile. And Emma had, Jean realized, a very wicked smile indeed. "Why, Tiger, I didn't know you were a toker."

The nickname was new. So was the pleased, teasing tone in her voice, like Emma had decided she was terminally boring and was only too happy to be proven wrong. Jean just shrugged and started rolling a joint. "Sometimes. Not usually when you're around. Helps me relax."

Her wicked smile grew wider, the tone sharper. "Oh, don't tell me the pressure's getting to you. I'd be genuinely disappointed."

She snorted. "I just bet. It's not my stress that's bugging me, it's everybody else's. I don't know if you've noticed, but it's like walking around in a nuclear reactor out there."

Emma laughed, honest-to-God laughed, and Jean liked the sound. "It is rather an emotional hothouse around here lately, isn't it."

"More like a madhouse," Jean noticed the flinch in the other girl's eyes when she said the word, but Emma's reply gave nothing more away.

"And the inmates running it. Quite." By then Jean was done rolling the joint, nice and tight like Bobby had taught her when Scott wasn't looking, before Scott had gone off to West Point, and she started fishing around for the lighter which should have been in the box with everything else. To her surprise, Emma pulled her desk drawer out, grabbed a Zippo and crossed to her side, stopping to crack the window open. The cool air from outside made Jean shiver a little, and the sudden warmth of Emma's body on the bed beside her did, too. The blonde sparked up the lighter and held it out for Jean. "Well, go on then. You're not the only one feeling it, Tiger."

For some reason, the absurd nickname made Jean smile, and she cupped her hand around the flame, puffing to get the joint burning evenly before dragging in a good lungful and holding it. Exhaling, she hummed, "You'd better not be a narc. Try that on, Frosty." Jean made to pass it, but Emma leaned over and took her hit from between Jean's fingers, a curiously intimate gesture from the usually aloof teenager.

The girl didn't linger, and she didn't cough, either, letting the smoke out gently through pursed lips before opening her eyes again. "Who'd have thought it." They both grinned and relaxed, propped up against the institutional white wall, a canopy of Jean's notes taped to it above their heads, passing the joint over the coffee cup that served them as an ashtray.

They lolled against each other as the joint burned down, until Jean yelped at the coal against her fingers. "Hang on." Emma pulled herself upright, an ungainly action which made Jean giggle, and went to rummage in her dresser drawer.

"Oh, don't tell me Frosty's got a roach?"

"Hah." The girl turned around, makeup kit in hand, and pulled something out, held it aloft in triumph. "Eyebrow pliers."

"You're a genius get back here."

Neither of them bothered looking at the clock when they'd finished, tipping the coffee cup out of their window and collapsing on their respective beds. Scraps of conversation, jokes and secrets, whispered between them until a happy sleep took Jean. Exams blew by after that, the two of them too buried to eat much less talk, and then the dorm was closing for the break and Jean somehow missed Emma leaving before getting on the train herself to go home. Still, despite the tension that they'd both been part of in classroom and dining hall, the two girls had somehow maintained the sideways serenity that their shared indulgence had created, and coming back from a nice week of catching up on her reading and avoiding her brothers, Jean worried that the break would have broken it, that they'd be right back at square one.

So when the first thing she saw coming through the door was Emma's slightly twisted smile, Jean didn't question the relief she felt, or the answering grin she couldn't quite hide behind her hand.

"Grades are in." The blonde held not one but two brown envelopes in her hand, cultured voice deliberately bored. "I took the liberty of collecting yours as well."

Jean dropped her duffel bag and shot forward. "Did you open them?"

"Not yet." Emma twitched them just out of her reach, then relaxed with a superior smirk. "I was going to give you another five minutes."

"Brat." Jean got the envelope on her second swipe, aware that she only made the grab because Emma let her. She had the urge to suggest that they open them on count of three, but squelched it, instead withdrawing to her bed and easing the envelope open. She wasn't surprised by what she read– relieved, but not surprised.

Feeling Emma's expectant eyes on her, Jean very deliberately did not look up, contenting herself with a pleased smile and wondering just how long the other girl could keep quiet. The silence stretched on, and on, becoming thicker and more charged with every second, until finally Jean dragged her head up to meet her roommate's burning blue gaze. Still, neither girl spoke, neither admitted defeat: their faces betrayed them, though, Emma's haughty mask and Jean's polite indifference both dissolving into grins before Emma tossed her grades carelessly onto her bed and stood.

"Well, glad that's over with, Tiger. Now we do it again, about twelve more times."

The rest of the semester rattled past like one of the subway trains Jean sometimes rode, out with friends to Brooklyn or the Village or up into Harlem, in search of a new record or the perfect egg cream. Emma continued dividing her time between class and her bizarre social whirl, equal parts pool party and new politics; Jean competed with and against the other pre-meds, taking refuge in her Shakespeare course and late-night cheeseburgers with her French group. Scott got a pass one weekend and came down; Bobby and Hank came up, but Warren and Betsy couldn't make it. Warren made sure the boys had a place to stay in the city, though: having a hotel magnate in the family had its perks.

That was fun, the four of them cramming into a booth at a diner, tossing fries at each other and laughing. Hank had grown a beard to annoy Bobby, who still couldn't, but he could and did beat Hank in the milkshake-eating competition. Scott had looked so odd with his head nearly shaved and his shirt pressed, but he was starting to grow up, too, his jaw stronger and his shoulders broader than the last time she'd seen him. His smile was still the same, though. As much as she loved the boys, it was a little lonely being the only girl at the table: she missed Betsy’s dry wit and uncanny aim. Jean had considered asking Emma, when she'd gotten Scott's letter, if she wanted to come out with them, but something had made her hold back.

There was no way she would have accepted, of course: Emma always had plans, it was what made her bouts of spontaneity interesting. Still, Jean couldn't quite tell if she was trying to keep her sharp-tongued, blue-blooded roommate away from her friends and sort-of boyfriend, or if she didn't want her old friends and sort-of boyfriend stepping all over her time with her new roommate. The night had ended without incident, Scott kissing her for a long time before she slipped back into her dorm, well past nightfall and still back in bed before Emma: in the dark, Scott's kiss still tingling on her lips, she wondered what was keeping the blonde out so late.

A week after that, Shakespeare project turned in and finals still comfortably distant, Jean sat on her bed with the radio on and the window open while Emma clattered away at her typewriter. The window was open because the redhead was relaxing, putting everything out of her mind by performing a task that required her complete focus: painting her toenails. She'd showered, shaved, and felt vaguely human again after sweating it through a presentation, and was finishing off her ritual by painting her toenails a fetching shade of green that, in all likelihood, no one but her would see because New York City was uncharacteristically slow to warm up that April.

So engrossed was she in her handiwork that Emma's typewriter had been silent for several minutes before Jean registered the change and looked up. To her amusement, the blonde sat straddling her hard chair, arms crossed on the top and chin resting on them, paper stacked on the desk and a sort of scrunched-up look on her face.

"What?" By mutual agreement, they'd tuned the radio to a local– very local, it faded out in Yonkers– rock and roll station, and something loud and raucous chose that moment to come on. It had a good beat, and you could dance to it.

Emma huffed, her bangs fluttering up for a moment, and then replied. "I really feel I ought to hate you. No one should be entitled to pretty feet."

Jean grinned, amused mostly by the admission that Emma did not, in fact, hate her. "You should have seen them when I broke my ankle last spring. Purple and yellow are not my colors. At least, not together."

The blonde snorted in reply, then turned and flopped down onto her bed with yet another book. "How very ghastly. And how precisely did you acquire that particular injury?"

"Winning the girl's regional soccer championship." The reply was immediate and just a little smug as Jean finished the pinky toe of her left foot and pulled out the clear coat. That slide tackle, painful as it had been, had been too little, too late.

"An acceptable casualty, then."

"Yuh huh. Though the crutches were a pain. Missed the spring formal completely." Attention back on her feet, she pursed her lips and went just a little bit out on a limb. "Housing request forms are due in by Friday." She wasn't going to _ask_ , there was no way she'd ever actually ask Emma outright, but a little fishing should get the job done.

"You're right." The blonde just let it hang there, rolling over onto her stomach– not that Jean was looking, because she wasn't, because she was focusing on her clear coat– and flipping a page. "I turned mine in on Monday." Her tone, bored and distant, gave nothing away– except that Jean wasn't stupid and had noticed that Emma generally only used that voice if she was holding out or hiding from something. Jean made a note never to play poker against her.

"Me, too." At an impasse, she figured that while she couldn't possibly ask Emma if she liked rooming together, she could make it into a challenge. "Cutting and running, are you?"

"Me?" Emma jerked her chin up in that twitch she sometimes couldn't control, still pretending to read at least as hard as Jean was pretending to work on her pedicure. "Tiger, you must have me confused with someone else. I can take it if you can."

"Well, then, Frosty, you'll get your chance to prove it next semester." Pleased, the girls looked at each other out of the corners of their eyes, not exactly smiling. "So, what class is that magnum opus for, anyway?" Jean kept her voice light and friendly, skating clear of the moment, and Emma followed her lead.

"Psychology." Something about the way the blonde drawled words out tickled Jean, and she blew on her toes to hide a smile.

"That's an interesting choice for a political science student, isn't it?"

"It comes in handy." Whatever she was reading, it was sucking her in; the absentminded reply reminded Jean of her own coursework, and she stretched out to grab her chemistry notes. Lang was a real piece of work– like a lot of the Columbia faculty, he still had a problem with _girls_ in his classes– and he'd probably spring at least one more quiz on them before the final, which promised to be brutal.

He had, of course, and she'd continued her trend of blasting the sexist old fossil's quizzes out of the water. The night after her anatomy final– the lecture test held in class, blessedly ahead of the lab final and eliminated from the exam schedule proper– Emma came back to the room laden with library books, her mail, and a humming energy.

"Another all-nighter?" Usually the blonde kept those confined to the library, either out of some vestige of consideration for Jean's sleep or the convenience. It was unusual to see her so jazzed after eleven o'clock, though, so Jean went with the first plausible explanation: No-Doz.

"Maybe. Possibly. We'll see." Jean frowned, drawn from contemplation of _Rolling Stone_ (an indulgence absolutely necessary for the maintenance of her sanity) at the staccato response. Emma usually knew exactly what she wanted to say, and said it: correcting herself like that was unusual enough to warrant alarm. She didn't look upset, though, just excited. "What are you doing over the summer?"

Green eyes blinked at the non-sequitur. "Well," Jean suddenly tried to remember– she had plans, she knew she did, she just had to recall what they were in the face of this strange, elated, fever-bright Emma Frost. "Going home for about a week, and then I'm leading the junior high soccer camps and clinics at my old prep school. I was a counselor last summer, and Betsy will be there to help out, but she already said it's her last year and she's only staying on to make sure I'm on top of things."

That seemed to derail Emma for an instant, bringing her back to focus on Jean and what she was saying, though clearly the girl was still bursting for something. "Teaching girls how to get their ankles broken?"

"And make it count. They're even paying me for it." Jean teased Emma back, recognizing the bait for what it was.

"Do you know, I think you'd be quite good at that. I can just see you with your uniform and your whistle, all earnest athleticism and good sportsmanship." She wasn't sure how to take that, quite– Emma's voice made it seem almost mocking, but her face was open and honest. Confused, Jean maintained a bland smile and waited for the blonde to come out with whatever her news was. "Do you get mail out in the wilds of wherever or do you communicate only by smoke-signal?"

At that, Jean snorted; certainly, the first day her parents had taken her out to see the school, it had seemed to be in the very heart of nowhere. That was before her father had taken the job in upstate nowhere, though. "It's only Westchester, Frosty, not Moose Jaw or god forbid, Cleveland. We have all the modern conveniences. A trained donkey carries mail up the mountain every week and there's even a phone you don't have to crank."

"Charming. Well, if you aren’t simply overloaded with correspondents, leave me an address to reach you. I'm going to be in a unique position to send postcards, and I'd like to have someone to send them to." The invitation– and the admission implicit in it– startled Jean, but she tried not to show it. Emma carried on, waving a hand at the pile of mail intermingling with the books on her bed. The satisfaction in her voice was unmistakable. "You see, Tiger, I've successfully engineered my escape from three months in Boston. I will, instead, be attending a summer seminar on international law and human rights. London first, then den Haag. Bookended, I'm sure, with bouts of squired sightseeing. Educational, edifying, and most importantly, at a constant distance from the Public Garden."

Later, Jean was sure, Emma would be using that as ammunition, a bombshell to drop on the other political science and pre-law students, another chip in the stack of her freshman worth. Right then, though, there was no trace of cool condescension or one-upmanship. Right then, Emma Frost was just a girl sharing good news with a friend. Jean's smile, accordingly, was pleased and surprised, sharing the blonde's joy for the moment. "Look at you, Frosty. How did you swing that?"

"Cunning and guile." The deadpan response, with that flawless Boston Brahmin inflection, made Jean laugh, and then it came crumbling down and Emma dissolved into her own fit of giggles.

Jean laid the magazine aside, still snickering, and grabbed a notebook and pen from her desk, dashing off the mailing address for the school and tearing the page off. She took the one step necessary to cross the room and leaned over Emma's bed, the blonde still cross-legged on it, pinning the note over the accretion of handbills, fliers, photos and other things with which Emma had seen fit to populate her wall. Not quite satisfied, Jean frowned at it, sitting proud atop the jumble, and then she smiled; in block capitals, bold as brass, she signed the note 'Tiger' and stepped back.

"There." Staring down into Emma's wide blue eyes, she smirked. "Now you won't forget whose address that is."

"How considerate." There was something in those vulpine features that enticed and unsettled Jean, so she retreated back to her magazine; Emma, apparently undisturbed, snagged one of her books, heedless of the pile slithering toward the floor, and they went back to silence.

Emma had some group project to finish before the end of term, and was hardly in the room– at least, not when Jean was, except memorably the night their dorm was serenaded by Columbia's marching band celebrating the opening of test season– until the fourth day of exams, when she popped back up with fresh coffee and no explanations.

"You take two sugars in the dark, don't you?"

Not entirely up to speed, Jean dragged herself up from writing outlines on the six potential Shakespeare questions and blinked. "When I can see what I'm doing, too."

That got her a laugh, one that wanted to be a chuckle when it grew up. "No cream, is what I mean, Tiger. Try to keep up. I fear for your academic standing." Emma delicately placed a cup of steaming coffee on the corner of her practice essay and quirked an eyebrow at her. "I get lonely at the top."

Jean chose to ignore the jibe and reached gratefully for the coffee. The spring which had been slow to start was warming up for a long summer, but even so the hot shot of caffeine was more than welcome. Risking a scalded tongue, she took a short slurp and hummed. "Chock Full O' Nuts?"

"The diner delicacy. Can rip the finish off of real silver spoons, tastes like an apartment fire, and is, alas, instantly, fatally addictive." The blonde seated herself on her bed, holding her own cup like a good approximation of the Holy Grail. "Available at very reasonable prices, fortunately."

Turning in her chair, Jean swallowed another mouthful of the acidic black coffee and sighed happily: the wretched, wonderful stuff was a taste they'd developed separately and indulged together, on odd nights in a diner at the edge of the academic acropolis. Jean had made two major discoveries in her first year at school: that leaving an anatomy book open to some lovingly detailed and squirm-inducing illustration provided all the privacy a girl could want, and that Chock Full O' Nuts could reanimate a three-day corpse. Not quite ready to go into that good night, Jean had been feeling a bit like a monster movie extra for the last few hours, and she slurped down about half of her roommate's gift without even waiting for it to cool off.

"This is so good. I hate this stuff so much, it's fantastic." She closed her eyes to savor the slightly scorched taste a moment longer.

"I wouldn't presume to comment on the level of dissonance evident in that statement." Her roommate's dry facsimile of wit twitched a smile from Jean's lips, but she let her eyes open only slowly, determined to give as good as she got this time. Emma was feeling playful, obviously, and so– in return for the coffee– Jean was willing to play.

"Don't come over all psych student with me, Frosty. You're as much a victim of this particular pathology as I am."

"Hence the lack of comment." Emma arched a brow and smiled into her cup, breathing in the smoky, filthy fragrance and sighing. "What's got you up revising away?"

"Harkness gave us the exam paper ahead of time. Six essay prompts, four will be on the test, and we write on three. So I'm making sure I have something prepared for all of them." It was a common enough tactic. She'd seen Emma do the same thing for some of her classes. Not the sort of thing that popped up much in the hard sciences, thankfully, because it made for a lot of extra work.

"How thorough. Has it ever occurred to you that if you don't know it by now, you never will?" The blonde was still teasing, prodding at her to see if she'd jump, or snap, or squeal.

Jean smirked, raising an eyebrow of her own. "No. It's never even occurred to me that I don't know it."

"Oh, very good." Emma saluted her with the heavy paper cup. "I'll drink to that."

She did, and they did, despite which Jean managed to get some sleep before she had to drag herself out of her lumpy bed and down to breakfast and a shower ahead of her nine o'clock exam, blue books and extra pens shoved into her bag. Harkness, the crotchety, cackling old crone, had given them three out of four prompts that Jean had actually _wanted_ to write about: just like that, miracle of miracles, she'd finished her freshman year. Back in the room, already thinking of the train ticket in her suitcase and how best to pack her trunk, the redhead lay boneless in her bed, staring at the ceiling and letting the feeling settle over her: she'd just finished her first year at Barnard.

It had been an eternity. It had passed like no time at all. The last year was a jumble of images, incidents, a fog of stress and happiness and insanity waiting to coalesce, someday, into stories about the best days of her life. Dazed, convinced she could actually feel all the tension and joy and nervousness of the last two semesters draining out, pooling on the floor beneath her bed with the enameled tin and a lost sock or two, Jean tried to focus, realizing that while she could barely conjure up anything concrete from the first semester, moments from the spring hung like crystals in her mind.

Which fell into a shimmering mess when the door swung open and Emma breezed through. The blonde dropped her bag, went over to her desk, and started pitching books at the bed like she had a grudge against them. "Done. Free. Over. Out, out, out, you wretched things. Oh wait," Emma stopped, glancing at the spine of one particular volume, and laid it gently on the desk. "Not you. You can stay. Gone. Away. Out." Each word punctuated by another book hitting the mattress. "Back to the library, back to the depths of hell."

"You know," Jean rolled over, unable to maintain her reverie against this backdrop, "I kind of thought you liked your classes."

"Classes, yes. Some of them, anyway. The vast majority of the texts, however, are the most antiquated, sexist, classist, racist, colonialist garbage I've ever had the displeasure to encounter away from my father's dinner table." She turned and looked at Jean, eyes narrowing. "Anyone who uses these as a guide is doomed to replay some of the grossest mistakes of the last two centuries."

"I know what you mean," and she did. "Guess you'll just have to write new ones. After you spend some time changing the world, of course."

"Rely upon it, Tiger." Emma's determined voice always sent a jolt through the redhead: she had a certainty that could bend steel, much less the world, around it. When Emma talked like that, Jean believed her. The blonde turned away again, pulling a bag out of her closet and sorting through the rejected texts. "Have any to sell back?"

"No. Half of them are library books and the other half I'm going to need for the rest of my natural life." Propped up on one arm, she watched her roommate move with purpose, a good two thirds of the books stacked up in the bag. "When are you leaving?"

"Day after tomorrow. So after this I suppose I'm packing." That surprised Jean, who wasn't leaving until the next week.

"That soon?"

"Well," Emma turned toward her, all satisfied smirk and dancing eyes, "I have a flight to catch, after all. Two weeks zipping around the countryside on a train and then I sweat through June in _old_ England for once."

"Of course. I forgot, you simply can't wait to get away." She tried to tease, but something tightened her throat when she said it. The blonde's grimace, and the studied indifference in her voice, only made it worse, though Jean was at a loss to understand her own reaction.

"Believe me, I have my reasons. You are done, aren't you? This display of lassitude isn't merely desertion in the heat?" The decisive change of subject tabled any exploration of Jean's strange feeling, and she snorted.

"No, I'm quite finished. Done, as you say."

"Good. We should do something tomorrow. One last piece of New York."

"What?" She could have said that she was surprised, that Emma could spend her last day with anyone, doing anything– or nothing at all– but she didn't want to spook the blonde into one of her defensive postures. The couple of times she'd really gotten her back up had been no fun at all.

Plainly choosing to reply to the other question Jean might have been asking– not _what did you say_ but _what did you have in mind_ – she shrugged. "Not sure yet. I'll think of something." Bag over one shoulder, Emma pulled the door open and tossed her parting shot in the same direction. "I doubt if Max's Kansas City is exactly your scene, but leave the planning to me and you'll have a good time despite yourself."

"Brat." It was her favorite word to describe the girl, and it rang down the hall after her. Alone again with her thoughts, she was abruptly unable to abide the narrow, stuffy room; Jean shot up and out the door, down into the slowly steaming afternoon, a handful of subway tokens in her pocket like the keys to the city.

When she returned under cover of darkness, she paused in the doorway, taking in the transformed room which was to remain her home for another few days. Emma had wasted no time packing, her closet open and empty save for the suitcase lying in the bottom, her trunk dragged out from under the bed and on top of her clean desk. The blonde herself lay beneath her bare wall, one lonely sheet wound around her and a pillow under her head. She looked so different from her waking self, relaxed and peaceful in the city light their blinds did not block, that Jean was moved to tread lightly lest she wake the changeling and break the spell.

The opportunity to sleep late in the morning was so novel that Jean woke up twice before she decided to let it stick. After that, wallowing in the sheets took up at least another half an hour, simply enjoying the feeling of having no pressing responsibilities. Of course, she needed to pack, and schedule a check-out inspection, and probably call her parents and tell them how her exams had gone, but none of that was important enough to rouse her from her slightly creaky bed or get her to put on actual clothes.

She realized that Emma was not enjoying a similar laziness on her side of the room when the door swung open and the girl led their RA in for her walk-through. "Don't get up, this won't take a moment."

Startled, the redhead pulled her blanket up to her chin– which was ridiculous, since she was perfectly decent– and then slowly relaxed. The inspection took all of three minutes, the RA checked all the boxes on her form, handed Emma a carbon copy, and then they were alone in the room again.

"You could warn a girl, you know." Jean winced at the petulance in her tone, but honestly Emma could have been just a little more considerate.

"Well, when I left you looked like you were enjoying yourself, so I didn't want to interrupt. I thought you'd have been up by now. Unless," the look that accompanied that was positively indecent. "You _were_ enjoying yourself and I _did_ interrupt. In which case I sincerely apologize."

"Brat." Jean grabbed a wadded-up shirt from under her pillow and tossed it at the blonde. She ducked, of course, letting the threadbare thing flutter to the floor with a twitched eyebrow in response.

"How uncouth. If you're done pouting and throwing laundry, I'll let you get dressed. Then we should go," Emma waved one slim hand vaguely, "Do something."

Sighing, Jean sat up and looked around for last night's clam-diggers. Her wallet and keys were in them. "I could use breakfast."

"Lunch, I think you'll find, Tiger."

"That's no longer a meaningful distinction, after having pancakes after midnight and chopped steak at nine AM.” She found her pants– how they had gotten there she couldn't exactly recall– and wriggled into them, leaving the old gym shorts tangled in the sheets. Groaning, Jean put serious consideration into just not bothering with a bra. She could still get away with it, she had a couple of years before a lack of daily soccer workouts and her mother's genetics swung into play, and this was a lazy day. Rolling her eyes, trying not to imagine her roommate's no-doubt cutting remarks on the subject, she decided to spare herself the grief and got the last clean-ish one out of the drawer.

Hours later, laughing hysterically and clinging for dear life to the grab bar of a distinctly rickety roller-coaster, Jean was glad she had. They howled around the curve, gravity sliding her relentlessly into Emma, and then Jean saw the drop approaching. Their screams rang in the air and were left behind as they dropped down the track, a fall that went on and on and _on_ until finally they leveled out and whip-cracked around the last turn. The two girls sat in the back of the train, in the penultimate car– but not the last, Emma had been adamant about that– which rocked and swung and jumped and clattered twice as hard as the ones in the middle.

Both of them were shaky-legged when they finally stumbled off of the Tornado, grinning and holding each other up as they made for the nearest bench. Jean focused carefully on her shoes, her breathing, anything but the lingering vertigo and the blood rushing in her ears. She sank gratefully onto the old wood of the bench, easing her head into her hands; from the corner of her eye, she watched as her blonde companion draped herself casually beside her.

"Okay, Frosty," When the feeling that she had left at least one vital organ behind had passed, Jean raised her head to look at Emma. "When you said that you'd think of something 'New York' to do, I'll admit I didn't think it would be Coney Island."

"But?"

"But I defer to your judgment. This is amazing."

The blonde tossed her head and quirked a smile. "Carnival and amusement rides are always better in company, for the simple reason that you egg each other on, and you're too proud to back down in front of each other, with the result that you try more things and have more fun than you ever could alone."

"I see." The little speech pulled a smile from still-pale lips and Jean sat up a little straighter.

"No, you don't. But you will."

"Oh?"

"We've still got the scare rides to do. Spook-a-Rama, the Ghost Hole, and Dante's Inferno await."

Jean blanched. She'd never, _never_ liked haunted houses. Her brothers loved them, and their enthusiasm had probably influenced her attitude towards recreational fright, but Jean habitually shunned the ghosts on wires and people in rubber masks, preferring the hayrides or literally any other autumn amusement. Still, with Emma looking at her like that, daring her with every line in her body, she couldn't back down. She swallowed and looked the blonde straight in the eye, noting the imperfect bravado lurking therein, and went for broke. "Shouldn't we wait until it gets a little darker?"

Emma's brief white grin was a medal of honor. "Oh, very good." She stood, brushing her shorts off needlessly and offering Jean a hand up. "While we wait, I hear the Thunderbolt is wicked fun. An absolute must."

"Well, if it's a must, we must." She squeezed the hand in her grasp before letting go. "Unless you're hungry." Walking along the boardwalk, the smell of frying onions tempted even her unsettled stomach.

"Trying to lure me to my doom, Tiger?"

"Well, something like that." She pulled ahead, walking backwards with her hands in her back pockets, sun on her face and the sweaty, salty, ozone air in her lungs. "It just feels, I don't know, _wrong_ somehow to do Coney Island without getting a hotdog. Don't you think?"

The blonde huffed, looking at her suspiciously from beneath blunt-cut bangs. "You just want to see me lose my lunch on the Bayern Kurve. I'm onto you."

She kept up her grumbling, hands shoved deep in her vest pockets, but let a grinning Jean drag her over to the Nathan's counter and buy her a dog– mustard, onions, _light_ kraut– regardless. They lounged against the painted wooden railings of the boardwalk, watching families, kids, couples out for an early summer outing as the sun got fatter above the beach . Jean watched as Emma finished her hotdog, scraping her fingers with the thin paper napkin, and then leaned forward to swipe mustard from the corner of the blonde's mouth.

"You missed a spot."

Emma looked affronted for just an instant, then smirked and grabbed Jean's hand faster than she could draw it back. "Oh, allow me." The blonde pulled it toward her mouth, grinning, and Jean caught her breath and bright blue eyes, for some reason unable to move: Emma held her hand fast, mimed swiping at it with her tongue, nose scrunched up, before laughing and stuffing the napkin in Jean's hand, and time sped back up.

"Brat." It came out a little breathless, this time, and Jean wiped her hand off carefully before pitching the napkin into a nearby trash barrel and taking off down the boardwalk again.

This time, Emma spotted something and dragged Jean off toward it: a photographer's booth, twenty-five cents for a black and white picture taken by a man wearing a green visor and sleeve garters to go with the striped awning and oversized camera. Emma slapped down a dollar and pulled Jean in close.

"Two shots, got it?" She winked and struck a pose, elbow against Jean's shoulder, chin in the air. Jean smiled and slipped her hand around her friend's waist, caught between looking at Emma and facing the camera.

"Got it, blondie." The flash went off, a loud crack and a chemical smell, and he drew the heavy curtain, swearing coming from the booth before he popped back into the open. "Okay, girls, once more with feeling."

They leaned together, heads almost touching at the crown, Jean's smile broad and a little silly, Emma's ironic but pleased. Again, the flash; again, the curtain; again, the swearing. "All right." The photographer handed Emma a ticket. "Come back in about an hour and they'll be all ready for you."

They howled together on the Thunderbolt, rode the carousel and rammed each other in the bumper cars, lamented the shuttered parachute drop and made plans to ride the Cyclone when it reopened. Finally, sun sinking into the bay, they collected their photos– Emma slid them possessively into one of the pockets of her vest– and turned toward the final test of their bravery.

"You didn't think I was going to let you get out of it, did you?" The two stood, not quite close enough to touch, staring up at the garish facade of the Spook-a-Rama.

"There was a lingering hope." Jean sucked in a deep breath. "I've got an idea. Why don't we start with the Inferno instead? At least we'll know what to expect. Kind of."

"Oh, no, Tiger. We'll save that one for last. Now come on, before one of us chickens out." Chin and spine determined, Emma stepped into the growing line of thrillseekers, kids, and sweethearts out for a good scare.

"Honestly, it's all just smoke and mirrors." This time it was Jean muttering her protests. "It's a cheesy carnival ride, a couple cardboard skeletons on strings and some people in bad masks. I don't see why it's supposed to be such a big deal."

"Just keep telling yourself that. And no fainting. There's no way I could haul you back out of the ride."

"Are you calling me fat?" Instantly aggrieved, Jean rounded on her friend, fear forgotten even as they turned over their tickets and were loaded into a cart.

"Of course not. I'm merely stating the obvious fact that fragile little me," here Emma fluttered her eyelashes, tone deadly sweet, "Could hardly be expected to carry an athletic young woman such as you. So unless you want to stay on the ride forever– or worse, have some carney manhandle you out– you'd better not pass out on me."

Before they caught the bus for Stillwell Avenue and the long ride home, the girls had conquered the three dark rides, then gone back for another turn on the Thunderbolt and a long walk through the midway, all bright lights and barkers. Tired on the train, they sat beside each other and watched the city close over them in the windows opposite, then climbed up into the strange electricity of the night, Morningside Heights abuzz with students moving out and street musicians moving on and the thousand other kinds of people who filled the city.

Jean wasn't entirely sure what they were laughing about, when they got their door unlocked and stumbled through, but she knew that she had a hand on Emma's shoulder and that it felt good. The blonde had touched her– and let herself be touched– more in one day than in the five months previous, sliding into her on the roller-coasters, leaning against her in the Tilt-a-Whirl, grabbing her hand and punching her shoulder and being more human than Jean had ever seen her. The thought made her smile, made her sad; it put her arm around the proud, lonely girl's neck and Jean couldn't help it. A warm rush of affection bubbled up, and instead of releasing her roommate to sink into bed, Jean turned her head and planted a big kiss on her cheek.

For a second, Emma went rigid, every muscle tense, and Jean felt a sort of vertigo replace her earlier euphoria, the girl inside yelling that she'd just done the wrong thing, again. She had just enough time to regret every decision she'd ever made, but not quite enough to get her mouth open and apologize, when Emma relaxed all over and shook her head, pushing playfully at the redhead while she kicked off her sandals.

She didn't say anything, though, just smiled and turned around to let Jean struggle out of her double-knotted sneakers and into what she wore to bed. Emma, all brisk efficiency, stripped into her open suitcase and pulled something over her head that Jean's mother would have called a slip and her grandmother would have called a scandal. They hadn't bothered with the light coming in; Emma's eyes were wide in the dark when she turned back to face Jean, and the shadows hid her expression as she leaned over and let her hair tickle Jean's ear.

"Well, Tiger, this is good night." Then her lips brushed over Jean's cheek, hesitant and soft, and she pulled back just to where Jean could see her face. "Until the fall."

Wistful, a little lost, her smile made Jean reach out for her, and then she was just holding Emma– startled, warm Emma Frost– and then Emma was hugging her back and then something happened. Something must have happened, but she missed it, missed who turned to whom or how and it didn't matter because somehow they were kissing and it was the most amazing thing that had ever happened to her.

Every other kiss she'd ever had jumped into her memory to be compared and dismissed. They were all pale, lifeless, awkward things against the weight of Emma in her lap, the gentle urgency of their lips as they moved over and against each other; she shifted on the bed, drawing the blonde closer to her, and the two of them slid down onto the mattress. It was breathless, messy, glorious: they managed the tangle of their limbs in the cramped confines of the dorm twin, and then Emma had one hand on her hip and another cradling her head and it was perfect.

Together the two girls were at ease, honest in the dark. Emma's body felt so comfortable, kissing her was so natural, that Jean didn't think about what she was doing for once and just _did_ it. Just enjoyed the fingers tangled in her hair, the mouth pressing softly against hers, the slow discovery in the act of kissing Emma Frost. Then Emma bit her lower lip– not even hard, a playful nip that must have come with a smile– and Jean's mouth moaned open without her brain's interference and _that_ was the quick sly flicker of Emma's tongue between her parted lips.

Jean wanted to move her hands, to grab Emma, feel her, touch her everywhere that she could reach, but Emma kept her hands still so Jean did too, instead stroking circles against the small of her back. Warm, satiny fabric moved under her fingers, slippery between them, and it almost made her crazy; she backed off a little, then, just brushing her mouth to Emma's, trying to keep her head. The blonde didn't seem to have a problem, more relaxed and gentle than Jean had imagined she could be: suddenly a little scared, she realized that she had no idea what to do even if she dared to reach out and run her fingers through Emma's white-blonde hair, or her palm down her thigh. She knew that she wanted to, though.

A small sound distracted her, a humming moan that Jean swallowed as she followed it back to the source, tasting Emma. The girl was bright, and sweet, and a little bitter, and Jean nearly laughed because that was Emma all over: an acquired taste she'd fallen into. Her nerves evaporated as quickly as they'd come on, tension unwinding as she moved softly against her friend, because this was just them. Whatever happened, or didn't happen, it was just them. The understanding warmed her, pushed her closer to Emma, and she thrilled when she felt Emma push back, when Emma's fingers traced their own little circles against her, because she knew that Emma understood it, too.

For a long time, there was nothing in the whole world except them, except the taste of Emma's tongue and the way her bare legs shifted gently on the bed; nothing except the warmth that flushed Jean's chest; nothing except the awareness of each other. Eventually, eyes closed already, her mouth slipped from Emma's: she must have fallen asleep, because some time before dawn Jean awoke, arms still around the other girl. A little surprised to find Emma curled beside her, blonde head laid against her shoulder, Jean pressed a kiss to that fair hair and drew her in closer before her eyes drifted shut again.

In the morning Emma was gone, and a hundred separate fears assailed the redhead before she swung out of bed. That she'd imagined it, first, then cascading outward from there: that Emma had regretted it, or been frightened, or disgusted, or angry. Worse occurred to her as she looked over at the distinct absence Emma had left. On the bare bed, though, her friend had left something else, which dispelled her fears: leaning forward, she stretched out and just managed to snag it, turning the snapshot over in her fingers. It was the first shot from their day together, Emma posing for the camera, her with her face half-tilted toward the girl. On the back, in clear, blunt writing, Emma had labeled it _Tiger and Frosty, Coney Island, 1975_ , and below that the simple note _I'll write_.


	2. Celestial Navigation

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Contains awkward heterosexual teen sex (but the rating hasn't increased, well done you for noticing).

She did, too: when, after a week of wrestling with her brothers and cookouts with cousins she didn’t remember having, Jean got back to the rambling Westchester County campus, there was a postcard waiting for her in the room she was splitting with Betsy. It wasn't much– a touristy picture postcard of New York, two lines on the back– but it was there, and it was only the start. There were two more before Emma landed in London: another kitschy souvenir card complete with sarcastic message, and one, the inscription assured her, 'genuine Parisian dirty postcard' which made Jean glad that she was the one who'd gotten the mail the day it arrived.

Checking the mail became a habit, along with the morning runs and drills and the clinics in the afternoon and the scrimmages and lights-out and all the other things she had to do that made her long for the simple fatigue of being in soccer camp instead of running it. Or, for that matter, the deranged schedule and straightforward sleep deprivation of the regular semester. She ran the mail call at lunch, handing out letters and parcels in the dining hall in a way that had Betsy making M*A*S*H* jokes and calling her 'Hot Lips' for a full week before Jean beaned her with a traffic cone and made her stop.

Jean got a couple of postcards a week, from some classmates who had turned into friends– vacationing in exotic locales or working in the city or bored at home– and her mother's weekly letter, following her out to Westchester instead of Morningside Heights. That wasn't why she collected the mail, though, and neither were Scott's infrequent missives: it was the thick airmail envelopes from London, from Emma, that made her rush down the lane to the mailbox, and while postcards from the other girl went off in plain sight, something made Jean conceal the letters that all started 'Tiger' and were all signed 'Frosty.' In the evenings, after the last of the girls had eaten, showered, and turned in, Jean stayed awake in the library or down in the kitchen, reading over Emma's letters and writing her replies, addressing them to her temporary residence in a London boarding house.

In those rare moments when she didn't have anything else to occupy her attention, Jean wondered about her roommate, who bounced from room to anonymous room and seemed so determined to avoid the one she had in Boston. Mostly, though, Emma's notes made her laugh. The letters were full of dry wit, with commentary on her classmates, subtle praise and acid criticism for the lectures and the lecturers, the occasional scene or description of the city sketched out in Emma's peculiar diction. None were more than a few pages; Jean kept her replies likewise short, reporting on the strange behavior of girls eleven to fourteen, jokes told in the cafeteria, bizarre accidents and miraculous occurrences on the field. They both wrote about the weather. Neither mentioned the previous spring, or the coming fall.

One week, Scott got a pass from West Point and came out, staying across the quad in the boy's dorm. He just missed the summer band clinic, arriving as the last strains of Sousa marches faded from the air, and had the building to himself. Whether through luck or clever timing, he showed up as the second camp was winding down, and they had a whole five days together before the next one started. They took walks around the grounds, spent time raiding the massive fridges and sneaking around late at night, only barely supervised by the few teachers who were mostly there for administrative reasons.

Jean talked about school, the courses she'd had, the things she was looking forward to, the professors she hoped to never have again. Scott told her funny stories about the sort of things that happened when several hundred smart, physically fit, competitive young men were regimented and wrangled and drilled to exhaustion and contained on a relatively small campus with no female interaction. She'd laughed until she was almost sick, and until Scott said she was going to overturn the rowboat, when he told her about the Jeep on top of the mess hall.

"And really, nobody cracked?"

"Nope." Scott's smile was a broad, uninhibited thing as he plied the oars, taking them further onto the lake. "Everybody in B Company was on KP for a week solid, plus extra PT morning and night, but none of us gave it up. And of course, they made us take it down," he screwed up his face, imitating the voice of someone she'd never met, " _Just the way you got it up there, dammit._ "

"Scott," she let herself sound a little scandalized, to tease him, "You were asked a direct question by a superior officer. Isn't holding out insubordination or something?"

"Well," he drew the word out, in that Midwestern flat accent, before he continued, "While a recruit shall not lie, cheat, steal, or allow others to do so, it doesn't say anything about clamming up. I mean, nobody said that they didn't know. We just didn't say anything. Besides," and he wiggled his eyebrows a little, making her giggle again, "It's one of those team-building exercises. Important for developing the unit-focused mentality that they talk about. If we can hold out on how the Jeep got up there against the brigade exec, then we're that much closer to holding out about other stuff, against other people, later on down the line."

That was a little too serious: Jean respected his desire to serve something bigger than himself, to put that tactical mind toward something other than chess tournaments, but she wasn't sure how comfortable she was with him facing hostile interrogations. She didn't know what to say, so she shifted a little closer to him, warm and real and there next to her, and when he turned to kiss her she kissed him back. It was good; a little scruffy, a little awkward, but good. Familiar.

"Let's go into town tonight." His hazel eyes were bright when he finally pulled back, and she could feel the flush staining her cheeks. "We'll get dinner at Harry's or something, food that we don't have to cook. Maybe even see a movie. Do you know how long it's been since I saw a movie in a theater, with real popcorn and everything?"

She laughed. "Probably about as long as it's been for me. We don't exactly get out of the ivory tower much, you know."

"Yeah, but I've been confined to base. You've been right there in the city. It's different."

"Not as different as you might think. Between classes and labs and homework and study sessions and," she rolled her eyes, "You get the picture. I hardly get off campus, much less get to really enjoy the city."

"So the whole time you were there, you're telling me you never went out and just did New York things?"

"Well," she couldn't really say no, because there had been rummage sales and record shops and soul food. There had been Coney Island, too, but that had been with Emma, and she didn't want to talk to Scott about Emma, like sharing those moments would make them smaller. Instead she pursed her lips and rolled her eyes, "There has been a certain amount of after-midnight eating in diners and reading on the subway, which I guess are pretty New York for a college student. But seriously, no movies."

"It doesn't have to be a movie." He put his hand over hers for a moment, leaned in and kissed her again. "Just something. Anything, as long as it's with you."

She couldn't help but smile: that was, possibly, the sweetest thing he'd ever said to her. Unwilling to get sappy, she pinned on a sideways smile. "So, like, a date?" They hadn't actually been official before, just exploring their evolving attraction before they headed off to the real world. Jean wasn't exactly sure whose idea that had been; it was sensible, so Scott had probably suggested it, but she thought that it might have been her.

"Very similar, yes. Same principle." He pulled on the oars again, sending them back toward the shore, and they spent the brief transit discussing what to do. Feeding the jukebox– and themselves, with something deliciously not-healthy– at Harry's was a given, it was the rest that was uncertain.

Scott talked one of the facilities and maintenance guys into lending him a car without telling the headmaster and they drove down into town. Harry's Hideaway was loud, half-full of truckers and townies, but it didn't seem as grimy as Jean remembered it, even with the cigar smoke in the air and the sticky stuff on the floor. Scott ordered for both of them while she was up pumping the jukebox full of quarters, and when she came back to the booth he slid over a little, but she dropped down onto the bench opposite him and smiled.

"I've missed this." The waitress, looking like she badly needed a smoke– and Jean thought that in the city, she would have been smoking– slid their orders across the table, her liver and onions and his double bacon chili burger. She wasn't sure if he meant the food or them being together, and it could have been either: he was certainly giving his burger the eye.

"Yeah." Jean figured that covered all the bases, took a drink of her Coke. They ate, and got up and danced on the warped hardwood floors as all their songs came on, "She's Not There" by the Zombies twice, and then they did go out and find a movie. Scott got his popcorn and she got his arm around her and it was fun. It was dark when they got out of the movie, the kind of dark she wasn't used to anymore, and walking back to the car Jean kept looking up at the sky.

"What's up?" Scott held her door open, craning his neck up; she smiled and shook her head.

"Just the stars. I'd forgotten how dark it gets out here." The clear, distant light of the stars had become unfamiliar somehow: during her year in Manhattan, she'd grown accustomed to its vulgar glow, and found herself missing the protective layer of light pollution. Confronted by the naked sky, she felt a little adrift.

He looked at her a little like she'd lost her mind, and then smiled. "I guess it was pretty bright in the city, wasn't it? Hey, I've got an idea," the way he said it, she could almost believe that it had just occurred to him, as if what to do with no curfew, no supervision, and a car hadn't been in his head all night. She knew better: it had been in hers, too.

Jean played along, though. "What's that?"

"Let's go somewhere really dark, look at the stars." He pulled away from town, up the long country road back toward the school, but took a cutoff before they got to the private drive. She knew where they were going, of course: the lookout point over Spuyten Duyvil was dark, pretty, and notorious. She could only hope that, at this point in the summer, there wouldn't be too many other people with the same idea.

To give Scott credit, though, when he pulled up a little north of the overlook and killed the engine, he got out and opened her door, hopping up on the trunk and leaning back against the rear window.

"Here." She snuggled under his arm, thankful for the breeze coming in, and looked up at the stars with him. He sighted for her and showed her constellations: orienteering, apparently, had involved a lot of celestial navigation.

When they slid from stargazing to making out, it was almost tentative, Jean pulling him down into her, Scott strangely reticent. She smiled at him, trying to get him to relax; she ran her fingers through his sandy hair, over his shoulders so broad in his knit shirt, skated them down his arms as she tried to put his hands where she wanted them. He was clumsy when he did get there, strong but afraid to be strong, so she arched up into him to show him what she wanted, and where, and how much.

They made it into the back seat somehow, just as cramped as but somehow so much more awkward than the dorm bed she'd shared with Emma: that was the last she thought about Emma, though, shoving thoughts of what she'd shared with her roommate away, feeling guilty on both their behalves for thinking of it right _then_. They'd tried a little of this senior year, before he'd left for West Point, but tonight they were going to go all the way and Jean realized that he hadn't known that until they were sitting on the car. She'd known it as soon as he'd gotten back, but somehow he hadn't figured it out; this new Scott, this half-grown officer, had seemed so much older that she'd forgotten how unsure he could sometimes be. Particularly about things like love and sex and touching and talking.

Thankfully, he hadn't totally forgotten what she liked, trapped in the barracks with all those other boys; he found the hot spot on her shoulder again without too much help, and if he was a little rough with his hand under her shirt she didn't mind. Some part of her, pulling his shirt out of those tight pants and feeling the hard muscles move under her hands, was actually kind of glad that she had so much of him to occupy her brain. If she hadn't been so focused on letting Scott know it was okay, showing him what he could get away with, making it easy on him, then she would have been way more tied up in her own insecurities about what they were about to do. His hand on her hip, under her waistband, made her jump; he pulled back, unsure if that was a good jump or a bad one, and Jean got out of her head and concentrated.

Almost in his lap, Jean could feel him, hot and hard and just as ready as she was, but she kept her touches light and over his pants, letting him set the pace. She smiled for him again, both of them struggling to get their clothes off and the condom on– thank goodness one of them had been prepared– still waiting for him to relax. Sex was supposed to be fun, even– especially– in the back of a Plymouth with your best friend from boarding school on a summer night under the stars. Scott looked tense, staring down at her like he'd never seen her before before finally dropping his head to her neck, his hands bracing him above her while hers went around his back. A little of the tension drained out of his muscles and she bent her knees, one foot on the floorboard and one on the seat, and took a deep breath as he moved forward.

It didn't hurt as much as she'd thought it would, which was good, and she wriggled a little to get a better angle, sort of pushing _down_ while keeping herself _up_ and found it was easier if she took more weight on her feet. Scott went slow at first, still too tentative, so she leaned up and bit his collarbone, kissed at his throat and jaw, trying to encourage him, starting to breathe a little heavier as her body took over. It knew what to do, anyway, and when she reached for his hips to pull him all the way in she didn't hesitate. After that, Scott seemed to get the idea, and while it may have still been cramped it wasn't unsure anymore.

Then it was a couple minutes of hot, sweaty pushing against each other, open windows letting the air in, his dog tags resting between her breasts, and then it was over and they were both naked in the back of a Plymouth and Scott didn't know what to do with the condom, not that she did, and then the awkwardness was back. She thought that with someone else, maybe– and she didn't think about who, because that wasn't fair– there would have been crooked smiles and laughter, but Jean knew better than to try and make jokes around Scott right then. So instead she climbed back into her clothes and kissed his cheek before slipping out the door into the night air.

They drove back with all the windows down, not exactly in silence but not talking much either. Jean rested her head against the door, looking up through the open window at the stars. She tried to remember what Scott had said about the names of the constellations and their positions in the sky, but none of the distant shapes seemed familiar, and she couldn't imagine following them home. Scott dropped her off by the girl's dorm, kissing her goodnight and letting her sneak up to the room while he turned the car back in. Betsy, of course, woke up when she came creeping in, and knew exactly what she'd been doing.

"Please tell me you're going to take a shower." Betsy had a lot in common with Emma, come to think of it.

"Shut up, Elizabeth. Of course I'm going to shower." She was kind of sticky, and her hair probably needed emergency therapy after being all over the upholstery. In the dark, she gathered up her bath kit and crept down the hall to the showers. At least camp wasn't in session yet: getting caught by one of her fellow counselors she could deal with. One of the middle-schoolers, not so much.

Under the cool sluice of the shower, she used as much conditioner as she could work into her long red hair, thought for the millionth time about cutting it off, and wondered if she felt any different than she had that morning. There wasn't any real answer to that question, though; looking at herself in the mirror, drying off, she knew that she wasn't any different, and wasn't sure if she felt that she should have been, or if she just thought that she should feel that way. Which was a confusing chain of thoughts, so she let it lie and went back to the room where Betsy was still very much awake and waiting to ambush her.

"So, spill. Was it everything you'd hoped?" Betsy did dry, in her fading London accent, better than almost anyone Jean knew, and that thought annoyed her because she hadn't wanted to think about Emma again. Or, really, Scott. She'd had enough of thinking about other people for one night.

"Seriously, Bets, shut up. I didn't give you the third degree when you and Warren went out to Cape Cod, did I?" Spring break of their last year there, the two of them had gone on a vacation with his whole family, not that it had stopped them or fooled absolutely anyone about what they were doing.

"Oh, but I was a senior that year, and captain of the soccer team, and you were far, far too nervous to twit such an exalted being about her first time. Come on. I'll show you mine," Betsy sang, shifting noisily in her bed, "If you show me yours."

"You are incredibly pushy, did you know that?" Jean found her hairbrush in the dark and set about brushing her hair out and braiding it up.

"I did, actually." No one, Jean reflected, should sound that pleased about a character flaw. The other girl wasn't going to stop, though, not until she got what she wanted, and Jean really was hoping to get some sleep.

"Fine." She kicked the covers to one side and stretched out. "We went out to Harry's, danced a little, caught a movie, then we drove up past the cove and looked at the stars and made out and then we did it in the back seat, happy now?"

"It didn't occur to either of you that he has the whole boy's dorm to himself?" Betsy laughed, but she didn't sound mean, just surprised. Jean actually relaxed listening to her chuckle, and then laughed herself, the tension she'd been feeling draining out of her shoulders and feet.

"I guess not." It was silly– of course they hadn't had to try and manage that in the car, he had a perfectly good bedroom, but neither of them had thought of it. So Jean laughed a little more, and felt a little better.

"No, that's good, that's classic. Very teenage sweethearts. It suits you two." She paused again, then sounded genuinely curious. "Which car?"

"The Plymouth." Jean had gotten through the whole night without blushing, but for some reason it was that little detail that made her cheeks burn. Betsy's next remark only made it worse.

"Oh, good. At least you had room to maneuver." She heard the brunette clear her throat and blow out a breath. "In the boat house, on top of a surprisingly comfortable bundle of old racing-sloop sails."

That sounded just like Warren, impulsive yet rich. Jean tried to keep her voice light as she pushed for a little detail, hoping to get a blush out of Betsy; even if she couldn't see it, she'd hear it in her voice. "Protection?"

"The pill. You?"

"Condom."

"Scott bought _condoms_?" There was a reaction, finally, though it was closer to shock than shame.

"No." She sighed and said what they both knew. "Scott would actually burst into flame from sheer embarrassment. I had them with me."

"Oh ho. Something you picked up in the city? Is our little sweetheart not so sweet after all?" Trust Betsy to tease her over being safe: she would have absolutely put her through the wall if they hadn't been, though.

"Shut _up_ , Elizabeth. I just sort of saw this coming, that's all."

"Well, better safe than sorry."

"Yeah. Are we done? Have we done the thing now, and I can go to sleep and not talk about this any more?" Her eyes were still trying to adjust to the near-total lack of light. Compared to her room at Barnard, this was the depths of space. It was making her tired.

"Are you kidding? You haven't actually answered my question. How was it?"

"You, madam, are the older sister I never asked for." In the absence of an actual female relative, though, Betsy did a pretty good job. If merciless and occasionally condescending, with trace amounts of actual affection, were the criteria, anyway. "I show you mine, you show me yours, right?"

"Right."

"Okay." She licked her lips and tried to put herself back in the moment, filtering her reactions and everything that had happened into useful words. "It was, you know, it was kind of awkward and kind of sweet and not over _too_ quickly and, well. Nice. It was nice."

"Yeah, that about sums it up." Betsy didn't sound as carefully neutral as Jean had, but then she'd had more than a year to think about and contextualize the whole experience. "We were pretty awkward, too, but it was sweet and giggly and fun and then he showed me how to rig the sails on his mast for real."

"Oh my god, tell me that wasn't the line he used to get you into the boat house." It was, though; it had to be, because that was exactly what Warren would have said.

"Yup. And if I hadn't already decided that we were going to do it, it never, ever would have worked." They both laughed. "Don't tell him I said so."

"I won't. Now are we done?"

"Yes. Now," Betsy's voice was remarkably smug, but somehow comforting, "We are done. Congratulations, you've made a man out of Summers before the Army could."

That remark made Jean burrow under her pillow, blushing furiously. She lifted it up so that she wouldn't be muffled as she said, for the last time that night, " _Shut up_ , Elizabeth. Good night."

"Good night, Jean."

Scott hung around for another two days, and despite the fact that he had his own room and Betsy offered to make herself scarce once, they didn't have sex again. They also didn't talk about it, which didn't surprise Jean at all but did make her glad that Betsy had been there to talk to: even if the older girl was pushy and sarcastic, she cared, and she understood. The day that Scott left, another airmail envelope came, and she rode with him down to the station and saw him off before reading it, wondering if she should mention the whole experience in her reply. Emma would probably think it was hilarious: still, it wasn't exactly the sort of thing she felt comfortable writing down. The day after that, the third camp started and Jean had more immediate things to worry about.

Jean got together with Betsy and the coach, running the high school clinic for the current team, to orchestrate the Fourth of July blowout for the girls, with fireworks and sparklers and a plugged watermelon for the counselors and everything. When Emma sent a postcard with her new address in the Netherlands, Jean replied with the cheesy Independence Day card she'd found in town, figuring that the blonde would get a kick out of it. She did have a fondness for the deliberately awful, and with her positive loathing of her New England home Jean thought that the Glorious Fourth was probably Emma's least favorite holiday. That or Thanksgiving, and she'd have to find out when school started up again.

The month flew by, the third and then fourth camps going much more smoothly now that Jean had the hang of it, and Emma's program must have gotten more intense, because there were only three airmail envelopes mixed in with the postcards. One of them, the last before she left the Hague for more sightseeing, included a Polaroid of the blonde, looking kind of disgruntled at a table surrounded by bright lights. She'd signed her name in the border below the actual picture; Jean turned it around, but there was nothing written on the back to tell her where it had been taken, or by whom.

After that, it was all paperwork and packing up for Jean, saying goodbye to campers and talking to parents and other administrative nonsense. A postcard came from Frankfurt– Emma touring the rest of Europe via West Germany– just before Jean rode the bus back to Annandale for more seeing relatives she was sure she'd never met before.

The new house was still strange: she'd been at boarding school for two years when her dad had made the move from Pitt to Bard, but her mom had carefully recreated her room from the old house, giving Jean the feeling of sleeping in a time capsule when she was there. Her dad was already talking about what to do with the room, and by extension all her stuff, so she spent some time sorting through childhood treasures and clothes that didn't fit, putting things up in boxes for later, most of it relegated to the basement. She kept Emma's letters packed in the bottom of her suitcase, and though Scott's got into one of the boxes, mixed in with her mom's and all the postcards, Emma's stayed even after she repacked and got her trunk and books together for school.

To her complete lack of surprise, Emma had beaten her back to the city, looking dazed but tanned, feet up on her trunk in their room when Jean arrived. Coming up the hall, Jean had passed a pinched-looking woman and a guy in an actual chauffeur’s uniform, and seeing Emma not even slightly unpacked she wondered if those people had something to do with her roommate.

The other girl waved in her into the room, movements languid with fatigue. "Tiger, there you are."

Jean's lips twitched up. "Welcome back to you, too, Frosty."


	3. Pressure

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, the rating _did_ go up for this chapter, clever you for noticing.

The fall semester began in the middle of a heatwave. Their dorm, being about a hundred years old, had neither air conditioning nor fans for the periodic brownouts to disable, so they left the doors and windows open and wore as little as they could get away with. On an all-female campus, that meant girls stalking down the hall to the showers with just their towels, and hanging out in their rooms in not much more, all of them miserable and sweaty and in foul tempers. New York City, it turned out, did weather the way it did everything: bigger and dirtier than anywhere else, and for a lot longer. According to the RAs, the summer scorcher had started about three days after graduation, and there was no end in sight.

Jean sat on her bed, hair pulled ruthlessly up in a cheerleader ponytail, a frizzy mess thanks to the humidity which boiled in through the window with the reeking city air. She was doing her level best to focus on her work, but being perpetually sticky wasn't helping. Emma sat, glued to her hard chair, shorter hair held off her neck with a scarf tied up around her head, also furiously attempting to concentrate. It was officially too hot to talk, the air thick and the light a distinct orange as the sun began to grudgingly slide down the sky.

Suddenly someone's voice rang down the corridor, sounding the alarm, "Man on the hall!" The sound of girls swearing and doors closing followed, cascading from the stairway toward them. Jean groaned and shifted on the bed, grimacing as her legs peeled apart.

"You are fucking kidding me." Emma was vicious when she was uncomfortable, waspish in a way that the cold wet misery of February hadn't provoked. Rather than reply, or make the trek to the door which was a million miles away, Jean grabbed a notebook from her desk and hurled it at the door, slamming it efficiently closed. The blonde didn't even look up.

Within minutes, the lack of circulation was noticeable; Emma closed her book loudly, looking over at the window to confirm that, yes, it was as far open as it would go, and sighed. Then, in the heavy yellow light that tinted everything in their room like overexposed film, she leaned forward in the chair and peeled her top off, tossing it away from her like it had done something offensive. "God, this is intolerable."

A sluggish breeze pushed the air around without improving things much, and Jean found herself staring at her roommate's bare shoulders and back as the girl collapsed onto her desk, reaching for the last of the ice-water they'd carried up from the ground-floor kitchen. Jean made some noise of exasperated agreement and stretched her legs out in front of her, flexing down to her toes, watching Emma set her glass down on the back of her neck. Her own plastic bathroom tumbler was long empty, even the condensation gone; it sat forlorn on a warped dry napkin on her desk.

Jean stood up and leaned forward, their room narrow enough that she didn't even really have to move, plucking the glass from Emma's hand and rolling it over her own forehead. The blonde turned around in her chair, glaring at Jean, opening her mouth to say something. Neither of them ever found out what, though, because Jean brought the glass back down, staring into Emma's eyes, and ran it over the other girl's bare clavicle, then let it slide lower onto her chest. Slowly, gently, Emma bought her hand up and tugged the cup out of Jean's grasp, setting it down on the desk beside her, never looking away from the redhead.

Her fingers, damp and cool from holding the glass, ran up Jean's arm to her elbow, and then Jean sank down onto her, sticky and hot and not caring anymore as she grabbed the back of the chair and kissed Emma firmly. Despite the sweat, despite the humidity and the stale air and the other things that should have ruined it from the start, Emma felt as good as she remembered; she loved Emma's hands sliding over her arms and waist and hips, tugging Jean into her lap. They were more intense this time, pushing against each other with a deliberate urgency, and while Emma was just as sweet and bitter as she had been in Jean's bed, her tongue was more demanding, her grip more sure.

City noise came in through their window, drowned out by the softer, closer sounds of Jean's bare feet squeaking against the floor, of Emma's fingers rustling over the nylon of Jean's gold shorts, of their mingled panting as they broke apart for air. There was a moment, before Emma opened her eyes, when she was relaxed, unguarded as Jean had never seen her awake. Then those bright blue eyes snapped open, and she gave Jean a wolf's smile and lifted her chin, drawing Jean back in for more. It was artless, but not graceless: Jean pulled her hands off of the chair, brought one to the nape of Emma's neck, let the other rest on her shoulder and rocked forward a little more, gasping when Emma shifted into her and their hips pressed together just right.

Over her soccer shorts, high cut and riding up every second, Emma's fingers teased and promised; Jean, biting at the other girl's lips, grew bolder and let her hand slide from Emma's shoulder down to her breast. She wasn't prepared for how it would feel, soft and heavy and perfect, Emma's nipple rising to meet the palm of her hand. She wasn't prepared for how it made the blonde hum into her mouth, or the fingers that slid under her shorts in response. Jean shifted her grip, cupping instead of just groping, and then she ran her thumb over Emma's nipple and when Emma's fingers dug into her bare ass she didn't know why it surprised her but it did.

Her body reacted first, pushing back into the hands that held her, her own fingers convulsively tightening, nails digging into Emma's neck and breast harder than she intended. A little surprised, she was going to back off, apologize, but the way Emma moaned and pushed up against her told Jean that it was what Emma wanted, so she did it again, squeezed roughly, let her nails draw lines across the fair skin of her shoulders. This time, her reward was teeth moving down the tendons in her neck, latching onto the place that made her unable to keep still or silent: she thought that maybe she'd said something, but she couldn't be sure.

Fingers under her shorts found the juncture of her thighs, cradling her ass and brushing lower, reminding her that it had been too hot for underwear for days, and that the wet heat she couldn't deny wasn't just because of the weather. She wasn't in the mood to deny anything, though: not herself, and, lifting in response to those fingers, not Emma, either. Emma's tongue swiped a long line to her collarbone, and Jean pulled back just enough to haul her shirt off over her head, inviting that mouth to move lower: she hissed as the blonde nipped and sucked, dragging her face down Jean's chest. When she felt the flat of Emma's tongue run slow and firm over her nipple, licking her like an ice cream cone, she couldn't stop herself from moaning.

She didn't want it to stop, but she couldn't get everything she wanted in this position, either. Jean slid her hand into Emma's hair, tugging her up to face her: the other girl was as bright and breathless as she'd been the day she found out about her summer program, but this time that exhilaration was focused entirely on Jean. Mouth dry, she just stared at Emma staring at her, both of them breathing hard and fast, and then Jean spoke.

"Bed." It wasn't a question.

"Yes."

Jean rose from Emma's lap, legs trembling just a little: her shorts stayed where they were, in Emma's grip, the girl smiling as she tugged them down past Jean's knees, _looking_ at her in a way that sent Jean fumbling for the mattress behind her. She had a moment, sitting slightly splayed on the bed, to look at Emma unfold from the chair and move toward her: a moment to feel gawky and awkward, all knees and elbows and sharp chin and long nose, to feel inexperienced and unsure before Emma's hands were on her knees, sliding up, and she was still looking at her like that. Like Jean was the most amazing thing she'd ever seen, and she never wanted to look away. The light made it all unavoidable, as Emma spread Jean's legs and then pushed between them, both of them heading backwards until they could fit on the bed: they could see everything, Emma could see _everything_ , and neither of them looked away.

"Come here." She surprised herself by speaking, briefly afraid that talking would disrupt whatever this was, but Emma only smirked a little and pushed herself up until they were face to face. Jean reached up and tugged the scarf from the girl's hair, running her fingers through it over and over– shorter than she'd kept it in the spring, she must have gotten it cut in Europe– and it clung to Jean's hands as she pulled her down into another kiss.

Emma held herself up on her forearms and knees, hovering over Jean: where they met, nipples just brushing, the press of her knee against Jean's thigh, her calves against Jean's, the heat was almost unbearable. Jean wanted more. She slid her hands free of Emma's hair, giggling as the fair strands snarled around her fingers, over the other girl's shoulders and then down her front, skating between them.

A giddy feeling bubbled up in her, a sheer happiness she'd never felt before, at touching Emma, her body at once familiar and totally new. Nothing else mattered as she explored the blonde, hungry for all of her, from the spaces between Emma's ribs to the way her stomach trembled when Jean stroked it to the spot on her hip that made her groan against Jean's lips. She needed all of it, to memorize and categorize and catalog, every sweet spot and harsh gasp, and she moved her hands with increasing urgency in her quest, scratching and soothing as Emma's reactions inflamed her.

"You," the blonde muttered, moving her mouth back down to Jean's ear, licking and nipping and making Jean squirm under her, "Are driving me crazy." She found the place on Jean's neck again, and then another that Jean hadn't known was there.

"Shall I stop?" Almost delirious, she pushed up against Emma, head thrown back to give the blonde better access. Fumbling fingers found Emma's bikini bottom, the last scrap between them, and Jean began pulling at the ties.

"Absolutely not."

Jean grinned and tossed the flimsy fabric away, groping Emma's bare ass with more determination than delicacy, loving the low moans the rough treatment elicited from the blonde. When she felt the other girl's legs start to shiver, Jean pulled her down with main strength, almost shouting laughter and exultation as Emma collapsed onto her, hip to hip at last. "Oh, god, get down here."

Legs entangled, the two ground against each other, gasping more now; Jean braced her foot against the bed and pressed up, just a little, and then groaned as the move spread Emma's wet heat against her skin. She grabbed Emma's thighs again, cupping her ass and reaching past to tease with her fingers. Fear, nervousness, had been forgotten; when the blonde twitched at the touch, moaning for her, Jean bit gently on her shoulder and moved her fingers further, slipping just inside.

There was a moment of stillness, neither one even breathing; and then Emma dropped her head with a whimper and pushed back; and then Jean thrust forward with a gasp; and then they moved together. Jean closed her eyes, listening to Emma's rapid breathing, focused on the tight softness that she'd found. She continued her explorations, turning and flexing her fingers to find what Emma wanted, what she needed, and how she needed it. High on the feeling of power and pleasure that coursed through her, Jean delighted in Emma's body.

She understood something about herself then, close enough to touch but too close to see; and she understood it about Emma, too, a different discovery that settled in the same place. In that bed, in the slowly darkening light, it was just them, stripped to their fundamentals. When Jean found the stroke and angle that made Emma lose control, she wrapped her other arm around the girl's back, holding her close and safe. When Emma shook and stiffened, Jean licked the sweat from her neck and growled her own satisfaction, protesting the loss when the blonde finally pulled off of her fingers.

The look that Emma gave her pinned her to the sheets, held her unmoving as Emma kicked her knees further apart and slid her own hand down between Jean's legs. She'd been preoccupied, focused on Emma's pleasure and the way she felt clamped tight around Jean's two fingers, but the ragged thrusting of her hips against Emma's had left her wet and ready. Jean bit her lip, already breathing more shallowly, and twisted her head to one side when she felt Emma enter her.

"Don't." The gentle admonition drew her back, looking into Emma's blue eyes as she eased deeper. "Don't hide. Stay with me." Low and intense, Emma's words nearly reduced Jean to tears, but when she nodded the blonde's brilliant smile shone into her. This was just them, just like it had been before, so she let her eyes close as she opened for Emma, the laughing feeling back in full force.

Emma knelt between her legs, free hand resting on Jean's waist, and Jean felt that blue stare on her as she drove Jean out of her mind. They had knocked the pillow and blankets off at some point, but Jean managed to wind her hands in the sheet to brace her, humming her pleasure, arching into Emma's gentle, relentless touch. It pushed her farther and farther _up_ , until eventually Emma's fingers deep inside her brushed against something and she jerked in response, crying out before she could stifle the sound. The blonde froze, but Jean forced her eyes open and her arms up, grabbing for her, needing to have her skin to skin.

"There," she nodded, trying to remember how to talk. "Right there. Please."

That was all the encouragement Emma needed: she leaned down over Jean, kissing her and pushing her weight back onto her knees and free hand as she plunged into Jean, finding that place again and again. There was a point where it was almost too much, and then Jean could feel her heart pound in her ears and the soles of her feet, and she suddenly relaxed all over, sighing and smiling as the fierce tension unwound and took her with it. The blonde kissed at her neck and collarbone, slowing her stroke, and then withdrew with a sigh that was very nearly a purr.

Emma flipped to the side, back against the wall in the little space Jean wasn't sprawled over, and Jean turned bonelessly to face her, giggling and smiling. They lay there for a minute, getting their breath back, staring at each other, and then Emma huffed a laugh. She pushed damp red hair away from Jean's eyes- somehow it hadn't all escaped from the ponytail- and let her hand trail down over Jean's neck and shoulder.

"As delicious as that was, Tiger," she scraped one blunt nail over Jean's collarbone, eyes bright under lowered lids, "I have this unaccountable desire for a shower. And for some reason," the finger dipped lower, "Ice cream. Can I tempt you out for a soda run?"

"I think I might be persuadable." Jean captured Emma's wandering hand, matching her sharp smile with a lazy one of her own, and then kissed her softly.

When they pulled apart, it was a long moment before Emma opened her eyes again. "Gushingly glad you can make it."

That was the first time, but not the last. They'd showered off and run down to the deli that lurked off of Broadway, where the heroin-thin soda jerk made them milkshakes, and then they'd gone back to the room and done it all over again, slower this time. Jean was sure that there should have been some awkward conversation, that she should have told Emma about Scott that summer, but Emma had just locked the door and kissed her. They'd spent all night in Jean's bed, touching and learning each other, and just before dawn Emma had pulled her close and let her go, brushing a kiss against her forehead, and slipped back into her own bed. After that, they'd carried on much as they had the previous semester, except for the times that they couldn't keep their hands off of each other.

It wasn't just sex. If it had just been sex, they wouldn't have been so insistent on having each other naked– completely naked, skin against skin, not just a quick fumble under the waistband– every time. If it had just been sex, Emma wouldn't have held her every time, until Jean stopped shaking, and then kissed her softly afterward when the redhead finally got her legs back under her, or as Emma returned to her own bed. If it had just been sex, Jean was sure, she never would have knelt beside the bed and used her mouth on Emma that first time, before she knew how much she'd like it, how much she'd want it again later.

If it had just been about sex– a quick release, or mutual satisfaction– then Jean wouldn't have lain awake, furious, well after midnight the first time Emma stayed out all night. She wouldn't have turned to the wall, eyes squeezed closed, pretending to be asleep while something raged and burned inside her when the other girl finally came back to the room. If it had just been about sex, Emma wouldn't have stopped beside her bed, watching Jean breathe, and kissed her cheek before sliding in between her own sheets: and if it had just been about sex, the gesture wouldn't have relieved all that pain and pressure in Jean's chest, or sent her fumbling over beside the blonde. Neither of them had said anything, Jean speechless in the grip of their _something_ , but that night they had simply held each other, falling asleep and waking up in each others' arms.

It wasn't just sex, she knew that, but Jean wasn't ever sure what it was. She wasn't sure what it made them– roommates who slept together, intimate friends, lovers who never talked about it– or what to do, so she didn't do anything. She didn’t know what it made her, that she was doing it: she knew the words for what she and Emma did, and she knew the words for the kind of girls who did that, but she could never find where she fit in them, or how they applied to her. It was easier not to think about it.

Jean went to class, attended lab and lecture and study session, dissected things and practiced verb forms, smoked a little pot when she needed to unwind, and sometimes she kissed Emma Frost until she couldn't think. Emma slept odd hours, spent her time studying and arguing and debating in classrooms and coffee shops, hung out with the people she didn't talk about to Jean, brooded over newspapers and textbooks, and sometimes she wrapped her arms around Jean's neck and pressed her mouth against the curve of the redhead's throat.

The weather finally broke, a week of rainstorms clearing the dirt out of the air and ushering in the cool autumn, and the semester started to heat up. Sophomores, as it turned out, enjoyed slightly more flexibility than freshmen, but no less pressure to perform, and they all dealt with that pressure differently.

Jean's birthday was in October, Emma's barely two weeks later, which she'd found out in the course of a conversation which confirmed that, in fact, Emma loathed Thanksgiving in a way even she found it difficult to properly articulate. For Jean, it was just another Wednesday night because she had a French translation due, but people remembered to send cards– some even had money in them– and she promised herself that she'd do something over the weekend to celebrate turning nineteen. Scott’s card, unopened, went into the drawer with his cheerfully uninformative biweekly letters, read but still unanswered.

She was sitting at her desk, radio on and French about halfway done in front of her, when Emma breezed in from somewhere. The blonde dumped her bag on her bed and kicked off her shoes, sighing loudly as the wedges spun across the room, and Jean tried not to smile. It was hard, but she had work to complete. And after a minute, pricklingly aware of Emma moving around behind her, Jean felt the blonde's hands smooth over her shoulders and down her arms. Jean watched the pencil tremble in her hand as Emma ran her fingernails back up the sensitive skin of her wrists and upper arms, and then Emma's lips were warm and soft on her ear.

"So, Tiger," the girl purred, with absolutely no regard for Jean's translation, "A little bird told me that it's your birthday. And while normally I'm loathe to celebrate arbitrary holidays, as if continuing to suck oxygen is a laudable achievement, I'm willing to make an exception here." She rested her chin on Jean's shoulder and sent her hands down to roam again, plucking the pencil out of Jean's grasp with one hand as the other slipped down along her side.

"Don't feel you have to put yourself out for me, Frosty." It took everything she had to achieve the playful tone: dismissive was out of the question as Emma's fingers brushed over her stomach, then under her shirt.

"It's no trouble." Emma's teeth closed over her earlobe, nipping softly, then a little harder. "Truth be told, I'm quite looking forward to it."

"Oh? And what is it about _my_ birthday that _you're_ looking forward to, exactly?" When last the subject had arisen, Emma had acidly acknowledged the eleven-month difference between them and let it drop; her renewed interest set off warnings in Jean’s head.

"Birthday spankings."

Jean twisted around to look at her, eyebrows heading for her hairline as she met the girl's utterly unrepentant look. "You're not serious."

Emma had a very wicked smile, sometimes. "It's traditional." She kissed and nibbled her way down from Jean's jaw to her shoulder, both hands under the redhead's shirt, making thought difficult. Jean sighed and pushed back from her desk, desire sparking quickly under those hands. Part of her still cared about her French, and part of her was still being shocked at Emma's suggestion, but most of her frankly didn't care. Whatever this was or was not, Emma was _good_ at it, and Jean liked that Emma was good at it: it made her feel like she was good at it, too, when Emma was looking up at her, hair in her face and fire in her eyes. So she arched up, reaching back to cross her arms behind Emma's head, and gave in.

How they'd gotten into her bed was lost in a jumble of hands and clothes, but eventually they were, and when Jean realized that she was naked and Emma wasn't she squeaked and pulled back. "Emma," she breathed, not knowing exactly if she meant it as a question or a warning, but the girl only smiled and kissed her again.

"Relax." Emma's shirt and skirt rasped against her bare skin, inflaming and confusing her further, but it felt good and she wanted it. She wanted Emma, too, but the blonde captured her wandering hands with something like a chuckle, stilling them in her grasp. "Roll over."

Shivering against the sheet, she did, the familiar friction against her breasts and thighs and stomach impossibly heightened. Jean gasped and tried not to shake too badly as Emma laid down on top of her, fitting their bodies together, and then the blonde was moving. Slow, lazy kisses unwound her, from neck to shoulders and down the length of her spine; hands soothed her, stroking over the curve of her waist to the swell of her hips and down her legs; Jean crooned and sighed and melted. When Emma pulled away the air was cool on Jean's back, raising goosebumps and making her shiver all over again.

For a long moment nothing happened except the radio got louder, and Jean almost turned her head. Then the first slap was playful, a quick pop that drew a giggle from the redhead. "One," Emma murmured, her voice coming from far away as Jean's muscles relaxed again. The next was a little more firm, warming the skin where it struck, and Jean wriggled against the mattress as Emma continued to count.

By the time she'd gotten to ten, Jean was uncomfortably aware that she was more aroused than she'd been in her life, pressed against the mattress and trembling. Heat spread across her ass, the tingle and ache merging with the one between her legs, and she started to jerk with each new blow. Blood roared in her ears, and Jean wasn't sure if she was trying to get away from Emma's hand, or asking for more: the blonde didn't speed up, though each successive slap grew just a little harder as Jean arched.

They were both breathing hard by the time Emma got to nineteen. For a moment everything was still, Emma's fingertips resting on the small of her back, unnaturally warm against Jean's damp skin, and then the blonde took a deep breath and pulled back.

"One to grow on." It landed with a snap, Emma's hand staying on the spot with a distinct finality.

Jean gasped into the pillow, unable to do more than push herself back toward that hand. Nothing was working correctly: she couldn't think, couldn't hear anything above the pounding of her heart, couldn't see anything with her face pressed to the sheets, all she could do was _want_. If she could have screamed, she would have, would have begged and sworn and wept until Emma either kept going or did something else.

And then Emma did. The hand was gone from her hip, and Jean barely had time to process and protest the loss before she felt Emma's mouth moving over her flushed skin, over her back and her hips and her ass, a hot spot that made already oversensitive nerves howl. She was talking, too, saying things that Jean couldn't hear or understand, but her hands were moving over Jean's body toward where the redhead so badly needed them.

She couldn't help it: she whimpered when she felt Emma's tongue swipe between her spread legs, hands tugging her up until her ass was in the air. For a moment, she was desperately afraid that Emma was going to tease her again, but the blonde drew back and then she felt fingers sliding against her, relieving the ache a little before finally pressing inside. They were flush against each other, Emma kneeling behind her, naked somehow with Jean's thighs against her own, her bare front pressed eagerly to Jean's back. It was frantic, overwhelming, wonderful, and just when Jean thought she couldn't take any more, that wonderful lassitude washed through her and all the tension let go. Wet against her ass as she collapsed back to the bed, Emma jerked through her own release, making Jean want nothing more than to roll over and take care of her properly.

After Jean had bitten Emma's wrists and licked the sweat from behind her knees, after the blonde had shoved a pillow in her mouth to keep from screaming, when they'd collapsed for the last time, Emma raised her head and smiled down into Jean's eyes. "Happy birthday, Tiger."

Jean thought she was blushing, but she was still flushed enough that she couldn't tell. "Thank you," she replied, trying to catch her breath, "That's a tradition worth keeping."

"Gushingly glad you approve." The blonde's smile changed to something a little more sultry, more sly, and she leaned in to kiss Jean again.

"We should do it again for your birthday." She mumbled it against Emma's mouth, unwilling to let her get away just yet.

"Hmm. I like the way you think." Emma nibbled on her lip, and they stayed like that for a long moment before the blonde finally pulled back with a sigh. "So, do you have any plans to mark this momentous occasion?"

"Nothing as good as what you came up with, Frosty."

"Yes, well. I do have a certain inimitable style, don't I?" Her response, in an exaggerated version of her usual Back Bay drawl, got a lopsided smile from Jean.

"Brat." Stretching, every tingling nerve protesting, she somehow hauled herself upright. A guilty look over at her desk, pencil still lying athwart her notebook, drew a sigh. "After that, the last thing I want to do is get back to work, but I can't afford to get behind in French."

"Far be it from me, Tiger," Emma waved a hand, "To stand between you and your studies." She eyed her own desk, the bag she'd abandoned on her bed, and pursed her lips. "All play and no work is very nearly as bad as the reverse."

Somehow, they managed to keep their hands off of each other long enough to get their work done: turning her assignment in the next day, Jean reflected that there was nothing in her translation to suggest that half of it had been done naked, stretched out on her bunk with her legs thrown over Emma's lap. She spent most of that Friday in Columbia's biology lab, a little unsettled to realize that she begrudged the time away from her room, and her roommate. Shaking the thought away, she focused again on what was in front of her, and didn't go back to the dorm until well after the autumn sun had slunk below the skyline.


	4. On Hudson

It was insane. It was wonderful. It couldn't last. She hadn't seen the end coming: she'd seen a lot of different ends, from the catastrophic to the bittersweet, but the way it ended had blindsided her.

On the Sunday after she turned nineteen, Jean kept her promise to herself and splurged a little on a birthday treat. The enamel tin under her bed had been empty for two weeks before she managed to get out and meet her man, but when she came back it was with a little something extra. It was just her in the room; despite the week she'd had, Jean tucked her stash away without sampling it, instead stretching out on her bed with her eyes closed. Quite without her brain's input, she rolled over and buried her face in her pillow, Emma's scent lingering there: her mother would have had the sheets in the wash before their mingled sweat had dried, but her mother never would have kissed her roommate in the first place. Laughing to herself, Jean permitted the indulgence for a minute more, but had the presence of mind to turn back over when she heard the key in the lock.

"Done curing cancer for the day?" Emma smirked down at her, bangs in her eyes and hand on her hip. She was wrapped up in a tan knee-length trenchcoat, entirely unnecessary for the weather but stunning on her; Jean appreciated the bare inches between its hem and the tops of Emma's boots.

"At least. Solved all the world's problems already?" She sat up on her bed, stretching shamelessly and pretending to ignore the way Emma's eyes followed the movement.

"Everything that can't wait until tomorrow." The blonde dropped her bag on the chaos of her bed, glanced at the tiny watch that hung from a chain around her wrist; Jean swung her feet back to the floor, thinking about the tin under her bed and the girl in front of her. They exchanged measuring looks, Jean just on the edge of saying something, before Emma shrugged and blew her bangs out of her way. "Come on, let's get a cup of coffee or something."

In deference to the wind, Jean threw a baggy sweater on over her capris and shirt, shoved her feet into a pair of flats that might have been Emma's, and they headed out. Campus was buzzing with girls on weekend time: the two of them crossed against the light and stopped at a newsstand for Jean's _Rolling Stone_ and Emma's _The Nation_. At the diner on the corner, they lingered over coffee and split a slice of pie, flipping through their magazines, the din outside kept barely at bay by the plate glass window.

"Guess what?" Jean finished her coffee, threw a crumpled bill on the table, and stood. "Got a surprise."

"Oh?" Every inch the lady, Emma set her cup down on a napkin, the spoon beside it haloed with the acid brown of her coffee, and dabbed at her lips with another. It came away with a blurry red lip print, though somehow she'd avoided smearing her lipstick; Jean looked out the window, wondering how Emma managed that trick. "I'm positively giddy with suspense."

Up in their room Jean drew the tin out with a certain measure of ceremony, lifting a forestalling finger against Emma's eyebrow. "So, I picked up a little treat. You know, for my birthday."

The blonde leaned in over her shoulder, settling behind Jean on her bed. "Why, Tiger," she purred, lips very nearly against Jean's ear, "I thought we already got you something."

"Quiet, brat." Jean stuck her tongue out at her roommate, earning her a smoldering look, "Or I won't share."

"My deepest apologies." Jean ignored her tone and pulled out a thick twist of tin foil along with the usual baggie and rolling papers. "What do we have here?"

"Hash. My guy's got a buddy who just got back from the Mid East, brought this with him. Supposed to be out of this world."

"Is that a fact." Emma had a way of making statements out of things that ought to have been questions.

Jean shrugged, scraping some of the stuff out of its wrapping with one of the knives she'd swiped from the dining commons. "I propose, Ms Frost, that we operate and find out."

"In the spirit of inquiry, Ms Grey, I believe that we should."

It grew dark without their notice, the breeze coming in through the window cooling as they talked and laughed and touched, until eventually they fell asleep, the unregarded world a wall's thickness and a thousand miles away.

The fire alarm woke them, tumbling them out of Jean’s bunk and into the hall full of other bleary-eyed girls, bare heels hammering a tattoo down the corridor and the stairs and out through the doors, RAs with flashlights waving them out onto the lawn. In the chill of the night, Jean stood in wet grass and shivered, looking for Emma or an explanation. She hadn’t smelled smoke on her way down, but the firefighters that pulled up made it fairly clear that something was going on. It seemed to drag on forever, though there was no fire and no ladder crew, just the winking of flashlights in the windows. Gradually the girls drew together, by some unspoken accord ranging themselves into floors and corridors; Jean recognized their faces but swore she didn’t know half of their names.

“Just a drill, I guess.” One of the girls from down the hall shrugged and pulled the blanket she’d dragged downstairs around herself. “They’ll go room to room to make sure everyone’s out, then sound the all clear.”

“Probably do room inspections while they’re at it.” Her roommate, who spoke with a flat California accent, looked more annoyed than anything, but her words shot a bolt of panic through Jean.

_Room inspection_. She tried not to let it show, looking around for Emma again; when she found her, Jean didn’t have to ask if she’d heard. The poker face Emma wore told her everything, and when the RAs started letting them back in, Jean took refuge in Emma’s straight shoulders and even gait. She tried to keep herself under similar control, trying to judge how far they were from the staircase, whether they would start from top down, or bottom up, or if each floor’s hall captain was responsible for her own section; Jean’s palms started to sweat, and she took the stairs three at a time.

Her long legs had let her down; when she made it onto the hall, she could see that her door was standing open, light spilling into the corridor, and she squeezed her eyes shut against the future. Now too late, Jean was willing to postpone the inevitable, so she took a minute to make sure that her breathing was even and her heart rate steady before approaching her room. There would be no way out of this, she was sure, but she could be calm. Relaxing her posture into something like ease, Jean walked through the open door, determined to meet her fate with dignity.

It wasn’t their hall captain she met within: obviously, they’d found the tin on an earlier pass, and there had been time to get the head resident, up to deal with her. Jean forced her face slack, rubbing one eye with a sleepiness she did not feel.

“Val.” The older girl nodded a greeting, and Jean decided that a yawn would be too obviously artificial. “What’s up?” She didn’t address the tin Valerie was holding in her hand, the one they’d left out when they’d fallen asleep, the one which contained a disciplinary action at least. Instead, she cocked her head, letting her hair slip out from behind her ear, and waited for Valerie to address the issue.

“Jean.” In the face of her bleary squint, Valerie sighed. “I don’t suppose you know whose pot this is?” In her nightshirt, looking drawn, she waved the box vaguely, obviously not expecting much of a reply. Her body was tight, pulled together like she’d already read the script and was just waiting for Jean to lie, deny, or crack so that she could get this over with.

“Of course she does.” The voice behind her, ringing out of the hall, jerked them out of their tableau as Emma stalked in, swept past Jean with not even a flicker of acknowledgment, and plucked the tin out of Valerie’s hand. “And will keep her grubby paws off it, if she knows what’s good for her.” The blonde jerked her chin up and cast a short glance in Jean’s direction before leveling her stare at the head RA. “What’s good for you, Cooper?”

Awaiting a reply, Emma bounced the box in her hand in time with the dull tapping of her bare foot against the floor; Valerie jerked out her temporary stupor and rallied to recover the moment.

“Am I to understand, Emma, that that's your box of contraband?” The taller girl looked out of her depth, flustered under Emma’s disinterest, but she managed to get the question out with a hint of disbelief in her tone. The slight air of command she’d achieved, however, withered at the bark of laughter from the blonde.

“Well of course it is.” Jean had never heard the other girl’s accent that strong before, even in jest; she sounded like Katherine Hepburn, right before she broke something over Spencer Tracy’s head. “You don’t think that little miss book scholarship over there,” an economical gesture with the tin and a slight sneer introduced Jean to the conversation and instantly dismissed her, “Can just lay her hands on a hundred dollars’ worth of Marrakesh Express, do you? I know it’s four in the morning, but really, have a little wit.” When the older girl did not immediately reply, slightly stunned by the forcefulness to which Jean had grown accustomed, Emma carried on, “If it’s all the same to you, some of us can benefit from beauty sleep, and would appreciate getting back to it. It _is_ a school night.”

Jean blinked, not understanding what was happening, watching every line of Emma’s face and body as she stood there, rigid and bleak and giving away nothing. Valerie’s eyes narrowed and her jaw clenched. “It’s certainly not all the same to me, Frost. Do you know how many college rules you’re violating right now? Not to mention the law.”

Emma did not roll her eyes. She turned her entire head away, leading with her chin, effectively communicating that there was nothing in the world more tedious to her than Valerie, except perhaps the conversation they were having. “Spare me the moral panic, Cooper, it’s too utterly boring.”

“Rules are rules, Frost, I don’t care whose daughter you are. I’m guessing the Dean won’t either.” Valerie retrieved the box from Emma’s hand. The blonde let her lift it away without any resistance.

“Oh, don’t get her out of bed on my account. The poor woman has enough troubles without adding you to them.”

“I’m glad to see you think this is amusing.” Valerie stepped toward the door. “Don’t bother going to class. Someone will come get you when the Dean is ready for you. Standard procedure in the event of a breach of the student conduct code is to contact parents, so I’d be prepared for that.”

“Gushingly glad to accept. Would a bottle of wine be appropriate?” Emma didn’t flinch, turning her whole body to watch Valerie go, all mocking smile and flat eyes.

“You really are a bitch, aren’t you?” The older girl looked confounded, as stunned as Jean was by Emma’s behavior.

At the word, Emma’s lip lifted slightly in what could not quite be called a snarl. Her chin jerked up and her voice was soft as she replied, “Whelped of champions.” It was the least affected thing she’d said yet, and it left Val– who could not really be that much older than them, Jean realized– wide-eyed and uncertain.

“I’ll see you tomorrow.” Hanging in the doorway, it seemed for a moment that Valerie was trying to find more to say, only to come up empty and pivot away into the darkness of the hall.

Stiff and slow, as if using each muscle for the first time, Emma moved toward the door, and closed it, and locked it, and folded herself against it. The ugly stillness that had kept her immovable facing Valerie bled out of her, leaving her smaller and shaking, and Jean broke free of her own inertia to close the distance between them. For a long time, they just stood there, Jean’s arms around Emma’s waist, forehead pressed to Emma’s shoulder, Emma bowed against the door. Eventually, Jean reached up and switched off the light, and in the welcome dark guided both their shaking steps into her bed: Jean cradling Emma against her, they waited mutely for dawn.

Emma practically pushed her out the door to class that morning, more closed off than she’d been since the spring. Torn between rushing back to the room or lingering in the lab, Jean forced herself to do neither, keeping her normal schedule and returning to drop off her things before dinner. Neither late nor early, she came through the door with her uncertainty shoved down, committed to acting normally until Emma indicated she needed something else.

The scene that greeted her reminded her of the day before Emma had left for summer break, stripped bed and packed bags, but there was nothing of that night left in the room, and the sick shock of it crawled up Jean’s throat and choked her.

“Emma?”

The blonde was seated in her desk chair, firmly upright, staring out the window in a position she probably thought looked natural. To Jean, it was as much like serenity as the previous night’s grotesque superiority had resembled hauteur: like watching someone who’d learned from a book or a bad example. Their room wasn’t so large that Jean needed to call out to find her, or to alert the other girl to her presence; she needed Emma to look at her, to acknowledge what was happening; she needed things she couldn’t even name, but they started there.

Emma took a deep breath, and then another one, and then she unclenched her hands and spread them on her thighs, and then she turned and looked at Jean. She meant to smile: Jean watched as her face forgot how midway, eyebrows rising and mouth twisting helplessly until she seemed about to cry.

“ _Ave atque vale_ , Tiger,” she stopped, teeth clicking closed as Jean watched her take another breath and swallow hard. When she didn’t start again Jean set the lock on their door and crossed over to her, feeling stupid and stubborn. She didn’t know what to do, or how to do it, but she couldn’t just do _nothing_.

“What happened?” She wished she had something better to say; she wished that her tongue wasn't thick in her mouth; she wished that she understood the look in Emma’s eyes.

“Eventually, the Dean's secretary got my father’s secretary on the phone.” Her eyes flicked up to Jean’s, then away. “I’ve been withdrawn from classes.”

“What does that mean?” Jean knew what it meant, she could see the results, but she didn’t know how it had happened.

Emma didn’t answer the question, instead pursing her lips and gazing up at the ceiling. “The Dean probably would have just suspended me, I think. With a little groveling, I might have got off with merely the grandmother of all demerits. Not that I do groveling, but I was prepared to be gracious. She seemed taken aback. So did Cooper, who is only slightly less odious during the day.” As she talked, Emma’s voice got steadier, but Jean could see her body tensing. “One tug on the leash and it’s back to Boston with me. I’m being fetched.”

The distance that yawned between them, opening wider with every word Emma spoke, frightened Jean’s heart into double-time. Faced with certain separation and uncertain future, it was Emma’s retreat into her armor that panicked Jean. Desperate to keep her there, Jean dropped to her knees and pulled Emma into her arms. It wasn’t smooth– she knocked her elbow against the desk and her knees hurt where she landed on them– but she didn’t need smooth. She could deal with being all sharp corners and too-large hands as long as Emma wasn’t shutting her out.

“Don’t,” the hands that clutched at her shoulders belied the whisper in her ear. “Oh, Jean, don’t.” Emma didn’t let go.

“When?” She had to know, and didn’t want to hear the answer.

“Tomorrow.”

It was too much. The full weight of it settled in Jean’s chest, pressing her face into Emma’s shoulder.

“What do we do?”

When Emma didn’t answer, Jean looked up into blue eyes that burned. The blonde shook her head, mouth tightening again, then slid her hands to Jean’s jaw and pushed her to the floor with the ferocity of her kiss. Jean knew desperation when it pinned her to the linoleum, and she grabbed back, kissed back, her aching helplessness leaving her with strength for nothing else.

Feeling Emma’s shoulders heave, though, Jean broke the kiss; she held her tight instead and ran her hands over the other girl’s back, trying to walk them both away from the edge. A brief struggle followed, Emma fighting her with manic energy for a moment, and then she was back.

“Not,” Jean tried to fill her lungs properly, chin tucked into Emma’s shoulder. “Not like that. Not now.”

“No. I know. You’re right.” She was tense, but her voice shook less. As she relaxed, she pushed herself back onto her heels, allowing Jean to sit up.

Needing the connection, Jean followed her up, hands on Emma’s arms, holding her still as she knelt in Jean’s lap. “Stay with me.”

“I’m here.” Emma nodded, staring down at her own clenched fists, then jerked her chin up to meet Jean’s eyes again. “I’m with you.”

The words filled the sick hole in her stomach, settled the fear and helplessness into a brief incandescent rage: at herself, at the world, at Emma’s stubbornness and her father’s stupid injustice, at the tiny, dingy room that contained them. When it passed, a single thought remained. “Do you want to get out of here? One last time, you and me.”

“Yes. Yes. Right now, let’s go. Anywhere.” Flushed with that intensity that drew Jean, Emma stood and pulled the redhead up with her. She paused, contraposto, chin jerking toward the door and back to Jean. “Where?”

“We’ll figure that out on the way, just come on.” She realized that she hadn’t taken her jacket off when she went to look for it on her bed; Emma struggled into her tan trench, shoving things into the pockets, and neither of them bothered to lock the door behind them as they fled.

It was dark, not that it made any difference, the whole world at their feet and nowhere to go. The helpless feeling welled up again, but before Jean could give voice or shape to it, Emma’s hand closed over hers and they turned toward the diner.

“First things first,” Emma murmured, ushering her through the door. She grabbed a menu from the hostess station, waived at the overworked body behind the counter, and tucked them into a far booth. Barely even registering their fellow diners, Jean followed Emma, appalled at her composure until she noticed the blonde’s hands trembling.

They ordered– coffee and pie, and Emma got meatloaf and Jean got liver and onions even though she didn’t know how either of them could eat– and then sat in silence, Emma shaking and Jean still. With the waitress gone, Jean had focused on the table between them, on Emma’s tightly-clasped hands; darting a glance upward, she realized that Emma was looking at her. Staring, really.

Emma had often studied her, generally at times that made Jean even more self-conscious than she already was, but she had never just stared like that. Whereas all the times before, Jean thought that the blonde was looking _for_ something, sitting across the table from each other, Emma was just looking _at_ her. The way one might step back and simply look at a problem, or a painting; not searching, just absorbing. Something about the almost-blank stare gave Jean license to return it, to just look. So they stared at each other until the waitress brought their coffee.

“Let’s get on a train. Go down to Penn Station and just… Leave.”

It was an absurd suggestion and she knew it. What surprised Jean was that, after a moment of startlement, Emma considered it. Licking her lips and frowning, eventually she shook her head. “No,” her denial was almost wistful, “No, that’s not for us. Drink up,” she lifted her coffee mug in a salute, the challenge back in her voice, “I don’t intend to sleep tonight.”

There was something about that smirk. Other people flipped off cops, or shaved their heads, or smoked under the no smoking signs. Emma smirked, and it made Jean feel like flipping off the cops, and shaving her head, and smoking under the no smoking sign. She smiled in response, a sideways thing that pulled at the dimple on her left cheek, and shook her head, and raised her own mug when tears started in her eyes.

“I’ll,” she got her voice under control, a few notes lower than usual, “I’ll drink to that.”

When their plates were cleared away, Jean realized that she hadn’t tasted her food, couldn’t even remember if she’d touched it. Emma tossed a couple of bills on the table and stood up, reaching for her hand again, and they left without waiting for the change.

“On an evening such as this,” Emma leaned against the light post at the corner, looking east toward John the Divine, “One might seek some solace in ecclesiastical architecture, let the mind gain refuge in loftier thoughts and so on. I’m feeling distinctly anti-clerical, though.”

“When are you leaving tomorrow? I mean,” Jean shrugged one shoulder, “They can’t leave without you, can they?”

“What are you thinking?”

“Tomorrow’s classes are already a write-off.” She cut off any possibility of protest with a gesture she’d used too often over the summer and was briefly amused at Emma's answering blink of surprise, “Don’t argue. The cliché thing to do would be to ride the subway all night.”

“Rather not get stranded somewhere, Tiger. But your instincts are good. What we need,” she declared, moving toward the subway station, “Is a flop. Somewhere we can just check out.”

The phrase flipped a switch in Jean’s brain, lighting the proverbial bulb. She stopped dead on the sidewalk, then surged forward again. “Payphone.”

Emma, attached to the hand Jean hadn’t relinquished, rushed after her. “Beg pardon?”

“I need to make a call.” She slapped the hookswitch in its cradle until she got the operator, rattling off the information from memory and hoping he wasn’t out cruising the streets of New Haven or hanging from the rafters at the club. “Come on, come on. Yes, I need to talk to Warren Worthington. Jean Grey. I’m his cousin,” she lied for the hall captain who’d answered the phone, and she waited. “Warren?” Miracle of miracles, he was actually there. “I need a favor. Somewhere to stay tonight. For two. Yes, I’m still in New York. No, I’m not with Scott. _No_ , I’m not with another guy, either.” She focused on Warren’s voice, not looking at Emma as she answered his questions. Somehow, she never had managed to tell Emma about Scott that summer. “A friend. It’s complicated. I just need– exactly. The dorm isn’t an option. Can you? Yes. That’s fine, it’s just for a night. Great, thanks. You’re a lifesaver, Warren.”

Handset cradled between her shoulder and ear, Jean dug around in her pockets for something to write with. “Hang on.” A slim silver pen appeared in her line of sight, along with a notebook folded open to a blank page, Emma silent in front of her. “Okay, go.” Jean mouthed ‘thank you’ as she braced against the side of the payphone and scribbled down Warren’s directions. “Go ahead. Jay street? Oh, gotcha. Okay. Perfect. I will. Thanks so much. I’ll tell you all about it the next time I see you. Yes. Tell Betsy I said hi. Will do. Bye, Warren.” She hung up with a sigh, saw Emma staring at her again, and smiled. “Found us a flop.”

“Lead on, Tiger.”

It was half an hour on the subway, down the length of Manhattan; Warren’s directions, precise as ever, would lead them across the top edge of the lower West Side toward the Hudson. Somewhere under the spine of Seventh Avenue, Emma cast a sidelong look at Jean and didn’t quite smile. “Are you taking me to Chelsea?”

“West Village. Meatpacking, technically.”

“How deliciously sordid.” Her hands fidgeted in her lap, but she didn’t elaborate.

“What is it?”

“Nothing.” Emma’s chin twitched up, and she gestured out the window as the train slowed again. “Is this us?”

“Fourteenth street. Yeah.” They shoved their way out through the banging elbows and up to street level. Jean caught Emma’s hand as they climbed the cracked concrete stairs. “What is it?” She asked again, even as the blonde pulled them out of the flow of traffic.

Emma shook her head. “Get the keys first, Tiger.”

Mollified by the partial admission– there was something, even if Emma wasn’t ready to say what it was– Jean worked her way across the oblique angles of the West Village, skirting Jackson Square toward Greenwich with Emma beside her. The blonde kept alert, scanning the street ahead of them with more attention than she usually paid foot traffic. Unwilling to press again, Jean focused on navigating and not making eye contact with any of the other people shouldering their way along.

“Give us a minute.” Emma stopped at Hudson, tugging her under the cover of a row of trees. She pulled a pack of Camels out of her pocket, lit one, and took a long drag, absently offering the pack to Jean.

“I didn’t know you smoked.” The redhead glanced at the pack and noticed it was almost full. “Cigarettes, I mean.”

Eyes closed, leaning against one of the trees that ringed an open space– a few streetlights illuminated what looked like a basketball court– Emma shook her head. “I don’t make a habit of it.”

With a shrug, Jean took one. “Me neither.”

“There’s something,” she blew out a plume of smoke, “Altogether vicious about it. Don’t you think?” Not giving Jean a chance to reply, she carried on, “I mean, I know why I think that, I know why I’m doing it. Chain-smoking. That has to be better than doing it and not knowing. At least this way I know who to blame.”

She paused to take another drag, looking down Hudson Street instead of at Jean, sharp blue eyes cutting across the men that moved past them. Jean wondered what she was looking for in their faces that she didn’t find in Jean’s, but didn’t interrupt, not when Emma so obviously needed to talk. The next thing she said, though, wasn’t in her voice: it was a quote, something she had memorized. “ _They fuck you up, your mum and dad. They may not mean to, but they do_.”

She dropped the end of her cigarette and stomped it out with her heel, lighting another as she shoved off from the tree. “Sorry.” Facing Jean again, chin kicking up, she flashed a smile. “Let’s not waste time, Tiger. We have all night.”

The contradiction made Jean smile around her own cigarette, not half gone while Emma sucked down her second. “What’s one place you’ve never been but want to go, and one place you’ve visited and wish you hadn’t?” She said it casually, the threat of the morning hanging over them, but was very precise with her words.

“We playing twenty questions, Tiger? Okay. I’ll bite.” The cigarette butt sped into the gutter. “I’ve never been to San Francisco, and I want to. If I had my entire life to live over, I would spend not even one minute of it in East Brunswick, New Jersey.” Another Camel slid out of the pack. “Your turn.”

“I choose,” she crossed the street they should have turned on, moving her legs to keep Emma talking, “To answer in reverse order. If I never go back to Carthage, Ohio, it would dampen not a curl of my naturally curly hair. As for a place I’ve never been but want to,” she took a final drag and looked up at the light pollution, “Cairo.”

“Ambitious.”

“Of course.” Her cigarette was burning down to the filter; she let it burn. “I was going to walk down to Washington Square Park and say there, but it would have taken too long.”

“I never much cared for Henry James, anyway.” Emma laughed, and Jean ditched her scorched Camel, and they leaned together for the length of the block and another of Emma’s cigarettes. “My turn. Speaking of tedious authors. What’s the best thing you’ve read this year that wasn’t assigned?”

All her leisure reading had been crammed into the spare corners of the summer, after other people had gone to bed or on trains from one place to another, and there was little enough of it. Still, it wasn’t easy to answer. “Tossup between _Ragtime_ and, um,” she could _feel_ herself blushing, which was ridiculous, “ _Switch Bitch_. You?”

“Well, you went two, so will I. _If They Come in the Morning_ by Angela Davis, and _Surfacing_.” Emma watched passing traffic; Jean watched Emma. Together they escaped the sodium streetlights into Abingdon Square.

“Margaret Atwood?”

“The very same.”

Under normal circumstances, Jean wouldn’t have been in any of the parks after dark, but she found she wasn’t afraid. There was a freedom associated with disaster, she was learning: a feeling that the worst thing that could happen already had. For one night at least, nothing could touch her, because the world as she knew it was already over. She wondered if Emma knew, if she felt the way Jean did.

Around them, the overgrown greenery of the park muffled the city noise, the city’s straitened budget on full display, fountain full of trash and the plants twisting together like a fairytale forest. The kind of fairytale that was all wicked witches and bloody shoes. The illusion of privacy made Jean’s palms itch, and she reached for Emma. “Hey Frosty,” she stepped deliberately into the blonde’s personal space as the girl put a new cigarette to her lips, “Gimme a drag.”

Emma made to offer it to her, but Jean brushed her hand aside and captured her mouth instead, tasting the smoke slightly sour on her tongue. It escaped between them, twisting into the night air as they moved closer, stumbling further into the dark. The lit cigarette traced firefly patterns as Emma held it out awkwardly, until Jean plucked it from her fingers and tossed it away in a shower of sparks. All daring, she pushed against Emma’s body, bearing them off of the flagstones and into the shadows.

Leaves rustled and scraped against her, but all Jean could hear or feel or care about was Emma, panting and touching and drawing her further away from the lights. At least, until they knocked into something and an unfamiliar voice yelped, “Shit!”

They weren’t the only ones concerned with solitude on a Monday night: Jean and Emma sprang apart, just as startled as the two men they’d interrupted. In the dark, Jean flushed scarlet at the sight, eyes nailing themselves to the greenery above her as she tried not to process what she’d just seen.

Emma, of course, recovered first, before either the guy scrambling off his knees or the one fumbling with his pants. “Nice night for it.” She pulled Jean back toward her with one hand, smiling easily even with the blush spilling down her neck.

“Evening, girls.” While she managed to bring her head back to its normal upright position, Jean couldn’t quite look directly at the boy, the knowledge of what his dick looked like interfering with her ability to pretend nothing had happened.

“ _So_ sorry to intrude.” For once, and contrary to what Jean expected, Emma managed to sound more solicitous than salacious. “Don’t get up on our account.”

Jean wasn’t sure what she was feeling, beyond mortified; the roiling of her stomach made it hard to concentrate on what caused it. She said nothing while Emma took over, talking easily with two guys who’d been trying to fuck in a park after dark. The thought made her flinch, a revulsion reflex she hadn’t known was there kicking her in the gut; it chafed against the knowledge of what she would gladly have done with Emma if they'd been alone, against the confusion she’d been carrying since the summer, and Jean couldn’t have spoken through the cotton in her mouth if she’d wanted to.

Laughter pulled Jean back to the moment, standing mute while Emma– glib, self-possessed Emma, whose hand shook only a little– said clever things to strangers. The blonde must have noticed Jean’s immobility; she pushed a little closer and murmured, “We don’t have to do this here.”

“You’re right,” Jean forced her panic back down, fumbling for the feeling of suspended catastrophe which had been so liberating before. It was all she could manage, but Emma didn’t seem to mind, pulling her away with a kiss blown toward the men they'd never see again.

“Still with me, Tiger?” Emma faced forward, throwing the question over her shoulder.

“Yes.” Jean choked it out, allowing the other girl to tow her back out of the park and onto the street. “Yes.”

“Good. Because I don’t actually know where we’re going.” It was so casual, so calculated, that Jean could do nothing in response except laugh.

The laughter broke whatever had been clogging her throat, and Jean overtook Emma, pulling her forward by their joined hands. “A couple more blocks this way, toward the river.”

On cracked sidewalks under broken streetlights they reached the edge of the island, West Street a moat between them and the dark water. Aware that Emma was looking at her again, Jean turned right; the stained red facade of what had not too long ago been a sailor’s hostel rose above them, looking exposed without a western neighbor to buttress it. One of the lights over the door, in its cream medallion, cast a light on the tattered awning that bore the hotel’s name and sheltered a few bodies.

“This is us.” To Jean’s immense relief, the other girl made no comment, merely gesturing for Jean to proceed her inside.

The place had seen better days, to put it mildly. There were some hints that it would be seeing them again, fresh damage to plaster and tile that looked more like renovation than further decay, but Warren hadn’t been kidding when he’d warned her that it was still pretty rough. She just hoped he was right about the rest of it. The front desk itself looked abandoned, but a rustling in the room behind it gave her a hint of where to pick up the keys. Emma’s eyes ran over the tin ceilings and subway tile, and Jean had to wonder if she was trying to give her space to muster her courage, the way she hadn’t at Coney Island or in their room. Jean wanted her daring, not her discretion.

“Gimme two shakes, Frosty.” Her voice sounded strange in the derelict lobby, but it brought Emma’s eyes back to her. Jean nodded toward the cubbyhole office the counter protected. “I’ll get us squared away.”

“There’s what looks like a bar through there. I’ll just have a look around while you take care of the details, shall I, Tiger?”

“Leave it all to me.” She watched Emma pick her way across the lobby to the bar– if that’s what it was– before turning and leaning over the counter, looking for someone or a bell to ring. “Anybody home?”

“Depends.” The voice came from the gloom behind the counter, but its owner didn’t come any closer. “You buying or selling?”

“I need a room.”

There was a pause. “Yeah?” A thick-necked man, grayish skin hanging under his eyes and sagging down his neck into the collar of his Yankees sweatshirt, emerged from the back. He flicked a glance over her, lingering over her hips and her absence of luggage before lifting up the hinged counter and withdrawing again. “Come on back.”

Jean hesitated, but she didn’t have much choice; she followed him into the untidy little office.

“How long you need, hour? Two? Hope you got the money up front.” He cast another glance at her over his shoulder, reaching into a cabinet where keys hung from pegs, some broken, some still gaudy with paint. “Gotta say, you don’t look the type. New in town?”

“I need a room for the night.” She emphasized the last word, hair at the back of her neck rising. The next time she talked to Warren, they were going to have a long conversation about his idea of “safe.”

That stopped him in his rummaging, and he turned around to regard her fully for the first time. “Don’t usually let women stay overnight.”

“You’ll let me, though.” It was part bravado, but only part. She knew that Warren had called ahead, and she knew what the guy across from her didn’t, which was that the world was already ending.

“That right? You gonna make it worth my while, sweetheart?” His ugly leer, which he probably thought was suggestive, would have made his meaning obvious even if he hadn’t taken her for a prostitute a moment earlier. He pushed away from the cabinet and into her personal space, looming over her but not yet touching. Sweat started on the palms of her hands, but she shoved them into her pockets and straightened her back. When she pulled them out again, they were dry, but not empty.

“Warren Worthington says that for five bucks you’re the most discreet flophouse keeper on the west side. That right?” She held up a few folded bills and one red eyebrow, refusing to let the unwashed scent of his body too close to hers turn her stomach.

He grunted, eyes shifting from the money in her hand to the neckline of her shirt and back. He leaned just that little bit closer, brushing against her before he plucked the money from her fingers and broke off: Jean exhaled slowly, never flinching, and accepted the key he procured from the cabinet.

“Four thirteen. Down at the end of the hall, by the washroom. One of the johns is blocked. I don’t know you and you were never here, but if you’re not gone by noon it’s another ten.”

“Not a problem.” She took the two steps backward out of the office, not turning her back on him until she had put the counter between them, setting it down off its hinges as she went. When Jean turned around, her roommate was waiting for her.

Emma, holding her cigarette at chin height, elbow cupped in her other hand, contrived to look as if she weren’t doing everything in her power not to touch the walls of the lobby. A very promising looking bottle hung by the neck between her fingers, liquid crawling up the square sides in time with her suppressed vibration. “The charmingest man just offered to sell me heroin. I declined. Two minutes later, he asked me if I knew where he could get any.”

“Covering his bases, I guess. Elevator, or stairs?” They both considered the elevator before turning in unison for the staircase.

“We’re on the fourth floor.” Jean swung the key around her finger, fidgeting with it like the blonde did with her Camels.

“Could be worse.” Emma looked around at the landing, ground her cigarette out on the wall, and pitched it behind them. Judging from the state of the stair carpet, and the wall, it wasn’t the first time. “We’re young.”

Jean skimmed her fingers along the old brass handrail as they stormed the first flight, aware of a tension in her that badly needed release. It was a sort of pinching at her temples, an itch that worked its way up her spine, like something waiting to run away; she drummed it out through her heels racing up the stairs, but it never emptied. Up on the fourth floor they cased the hall, finding the washroom with the blocked john, standing guard for each other, and then locking themselves in their room. Jean checked the lock twice and still dragged the lamp table over and wedged it under the doorknob.

They settled in on the only other piece of furniture– the bed– kicking off their shoes and dumping their coats on the floor. Jean rapped a knuckle against the bottle Emma had procured. “How much did that set you back, anyway?”

“Oh,” Emma smirked, that flipping off the cops and getting away with anything smirk, and Jean needed to kiss it more than she needed the answer. When they pulled apart, Emma licked her lips and tapped the neck of the bottle to the end of Jean’s nose. “There wasn’t anyone behind the bar when I stopped by, so I helped myself.” She twisted off the cap, the satisfying crack of a full bottle, and took the first swallow. “On reflection,” the blonde gasped, “I should have grabbed a bottle of soda, too.”

Jean tugged the bottle away as Emma wiped her streaming eyes. “Not glasses?” The whiskey kicked the back of her throat, but she managed not to cough.

“What’s the point in glasses, Tiger?” She reclaimed the bottle and lifted it in salute. “Bottom’s up.”

When Jean kissed her again, she tasted like bourbon, all smoke and fire. Both of Emma’s hands grabbed at her, and in a moment of clarity which she would be impressed to discover later, Jean managed to not only stop the bottle tipping over onto the bed, but get the cap back on and put it on the floor. After that, everything else slipped out of focus, leaving only them. Just them, alone together, the way they had started.

Jean forced thoughts of that symmetry out of her mind, pouring herself into Emma. First her mouth: softly against her lips, slow and easy but not too gentle, capturing Emma's bottom lip and running her whiskey-tingling tongue along it. Sighing into the kisses, Emma relaxed her grip and her shoulders sagged; she let her weight pull them down to the mattress, giggling as their foreheads collided. Though the knock did nothing to dampen their desire, Jean's laughter meeting Emma's pushed their mouths apart; blue eyes met green for a searching minute before Jean shook her head and smiled.

"What?"

"Nothing," Jean couldn't stop staring. "Just you."

"Come here." There was none of the earlier brittleness in Emma's voice, no edge of mania as she pulled Jean back toward her, so Jean went.

Emma's kisses were sloppy with smiles, but her hands were sure as they moved over Jean's back and under her shirt, and Jean's skin warmed in their wake. Taking her time, Jean let her mouth wander from Emma's lip to her chin and throat and neck, brushing over the other girl's ear just to feel her wriggle. Only after she felt Emma's fingers dig in again, flexing against Jean's shoulder blades in rhythm with her breath, did she slide her hands under Emma's shirt and begin the slow joy of unraveling her.

That tension she hadn't purged on the stairs stayed with her, a nagging hum beneath her skin that Jean recognized as desperation. She refused to let it spill out and overwhelm them, pushing it away even as she moved down Emma's neck to her breasts, running tongue and teeth over her nipple with deliberate strength. The sharp hiss of the blonde's breath was music to her ears, and she tuned herself to Emma, sucking and biting and stripping her with a ferocious deliberation.

Gilded by the light of the bedside lamp under its tobacco-stained shade, Emma was all pink and gold as she lay splayed out on the bed. Content, it seemed, to let Jean take the lead, she made a noise that was almost like purring and rolled her shoulders against the sheets that Jean had to hope had been changed recently. Refusing to even consider what those sheets and the mattress below might have seen, Jean pressed her face to Emma's breasts and hips and thighs and inhaled. She smelled like vanilla and cigarettes and that rich, musky something that made Jean's mouth water; she slid her tongue over Emma's hipbone, found the little dent just below it, and closed her mouth there to feel the girl shudder.

"Tiger," hands in her hair pulled and she reluctantly went with them, looking up at Emma's flushed face, "I'm on fire."

"Hmm." Jean pushed herself up the bed again, bringing them flush for the sheer joy of feeling Emma's body beneath hers, and dropped her face into the curve of her neck. "I could make that, ah, worse?"

A growl was her answer as Emma shifted to recapture her mouth. One hand stayed tangled in her hair, pulling just enough to keep Jean gasping against Emma's lips, but the other made short work of unfastening everything she could reach. Knowing fingers slipped under Jean's waistband and grabbed a good handful of her ass, hauling her hips even tighter to Emma's own. The shock of pleasure as they collided throbbed in her heels and her breasts and between her legs, and Jean squirmed in Emma's grip, desperate to get out of her clothes.

The growl had a warmer edge to it this time: Emma responded to her wriggling by releasing Jean's hair and using both hands to peel her pants off while the redhead managed everything else. After a brief half-sitting struggle against her bra, Jean scraped her hair out of her eyes and grinned at Emma, flopping back down beside her just to feel the bounce of the bedsprings. If it also rocked the blonde off her elbow and onto Jean, that was just a happy dividend. She huffed a laugh and let gravity have its way, happy to tangle their legs together and nip at the spot just below Jean's ear.

Not caring to stifle her moan, Jean didn't let the electric shivers that Emma's mouth elicited distract her. She ran a hand down the thigh pressing against hers, took a grip behind her knee, and wrapped the blonde's leg around her hip even as she let her head roll back. Anchored against Jean, Emma ground down and made a mess of her thigh, hips beginning to move in a slow roll while her mouth remained occupied with the sensitive skin of Jean's neck.

"Brat." Jean slapped Emma's ass, loving the spasm that drove her hips harder into Jean's thigh, loving the wetness that smeared across her skin with every thrust.

"You like it." Emma nipped her once more and then pulled back, smiling as she stared into Jean's eyes and ground down again, daring Jean to deny it.

"I do." She smacked Emma's ass again, harder, and reveled in the shudder that swept through her hips and wiped the smirk off her face. Jean left her hand in place, holding Emma, then rocked forward to rob her of what little composure she had left. Once she had Emma panting and grinding in earnest, she pushed up and flipped the blonde onto her back, still nestled firmly between her legs.

"And you like this." Jean tightened her grip on Emma's ass and thrust against her, all wet and hot and arching to get Jean into just the right spot. It was sloppy and rough, a little crude, but when Jean found the perfect angle, they both groaned.

"I do. Oh, I do." Emma licked her lips and used the leg still wrapped around Jean's waist as leverage. Panting, they slid against each other, Jean's weight bearing Emma deep into the thin mattress, until something in Emma seemed to break free, overtaking their rhythm with her own need.

Jean let her weight fall fully against Emma, pinning her down even as the girl arched and moaned and drove relentlessly toward her release. That was what she needed, and Jean knew it, and Jean gave it to her: the extra weight and resistance pushed her over the edge, and Jean stayed there, face tucked into Emma's shoulder, as her frantic rocking slowed and her breathing lost its raggedness. She stayed until Emma's ambitious fingers smoothed down her back and curved over her thighs, and then she pulled away.

"Tiger," it was a warning, but one Jean wouldn't heed.

"Relax," she rocked back onto her knees and stretched out again, toes digging under the sheets and hands finding Emma's hips, sliding under her thighs. "I've got you."

"Oh, but I was going to," Emma gasped as Jean blew a stream of air between her legs, from bottom to top, "Get you."

"Shall I stop?" She looked up, a hairsbreadth away from where they both wanted her to be, acutely conscious of the picture she presented framed by Emma's knees. For a moment Emma seemed distracted, and then she reached out to tuck Jean's hair behind her ear, a gesture as sweet as her blue eyes were eager. Confident, bold at last, Jean smiled up at the older girl and waited for an answer.

"Don't you dare."

Jean dropped her head and let her eyes close, nuzzling forward. Her hands kept Emma's thighs, inclined to squeeze, wide apart as she used the tip of her tongue, moving languorously over delicate flesh. When she finally pressed down, spreading Emma open, she couldn't have said whose moan was louder. Coarse hair scraped against her cheeks and nose, bringing up the blood in already flushed skin as she tasted, and tasted, and tasted.

Lost in the scent and the slick of her, in the way Emma's hips pitched up into her mouth and the muscles in Emma's thighs pushed against her hands, Jean could have stayed there for hours. At last Emma's shivering hips flinched away instead of driving forward, and Jean drew back, licking her lips and not bothering to wipe her chin. Emma did it for her, sucking her thumb into her mouth as she pulled it away from Jean's. That made the redhead flush all over again, and she pressed her face to Emma's stomach, burning.

Through her harsh breathing, Jean didn't realize that Emma's had recovered until she felt the other girl's legs curl around her own, calves pressed against the back of Jean's thighs and easing her gently forward.

"What are you up to?" Jean allowed herself to be guided, shuffling as far forward as she could until she was braced on elbows over Emma's shoulders, knees pushing under her ass. It was all she could do to stay upright, the pounding need low in her gut urging her to cover Emma again, to push against her until she was spent.

"Come here and see. Up here." Emma let her legs fall back to the bed, replacing them with her hands; the tug on Jean's thighs combined with the jerk of Emma's chin communicated exactly what she intended.

"Oh. _Yes._ "

For once, Jean didn't have to worry if the neighbors heard; she slammed her hands into the wall above Emma's head at the first touch of her tongue. For once, they could just be _them_ , no fears or silences or uncertainties between them. For once, as Emma used her mouth, Jean opened hers; she hardly recognized the noises she made, but the other girl certainly took them as encouragement. Unembarrassed by her reaction, her pleasure, Jean did nothing to quiet herself, determined to give Emma the long-delayed satisfaction of knowing exactly what she did to Jean, until Jean couldn't take it any more.

Where they were, there wasn’t even the rattle of the subway to mark time. If Jean had wanted to, she could have found her watch somewhere on the floor and checked the hour. She didn’t want to. Instead, she rolled onto her side and groped for the whiskey, finding it sealed and upright just at the edge of arm’s reach. Shoving herself toward the head of the bed, Jean sat up enough not to drown as she took a swig from the bottle. Beside her, Emma stirred back to full consciousness, muttering some objection before pushing up on her elbows and tugging the bottle away.

“Do you want the light out?” Jean wasn’t sure if she did: her eyes were tired, but she didn’t want to risk closing them and waking up alone.

“I don’t care.” Emma took another drink and rolled onto her side, carelessly naked, staring at Jean again. “No,” she corrected herself. “Leave it on.”

"Okay." She took the bottle when Emma offered, watching as the blonde stretched and sat up, back to the wall. Her eyes were drawn to the marks she'd left on Emma's skin, not yet bruised but already red where her mouth had lingered. Another drink and she moved so they sat side by side, twisted sheets tangled around them. "Okay."

Outside the window, the sounds of a fight rose in muddled crescendo, voices loudly indistinct. The thin mattress shrugged them closer, creaky springs tipping them shoulder against shoulder, knees touching as they shared the bottle and their body heat. The whiskey washed all Jean's words back down her throat, and for a time maybe she could forget that whatever this was, or wasn't, it was almost over. Looking down at Emma's fingers covering hers, she knew there wasn't enough whiskey in the bottle between them to keep the words away.

“What am I going to do without you?” She felt faintly ridiculous saying it, and even more ridiculous for feeling it, but she did and it wouldn’t stop.

Emma shifted around on the bed, knee still touching Jean's as she moved away from the wall, until she was looking through Jean, like she was reading something off the wall behind her head, or maybe looking at something that hadn’t happened yet. “You’re going to stay here. You’re going to finish, top of your class– top of _our_ class– and get into the best medical school in the country. And then you are going to heal the world. _That_ is what you are going to do.”

Jean swallowed, without the whiskey this time. “And what are you going to do?”

“What I’m told. For a time.”

“Emma.”

“I’ll survive.” She shook her head, mouth set, and then she wasn’t looking through Jean anymore, but at her. “I’ll win. Rely upon it, Tiger.”

Jean wanted to believe the determination in her voice, the stubborn set of her chin, but she’d seen that imperfect bravado before. It made her ask a question she wasn’t sure Emma would answer; a question part of her didn’t want answered. “What happens next? Tomorrow?”

“Later today, I think you’ll find.” Emma’s familiar arched eyebrow accompanied the deflection.

“Emma.”

She sighed and looked down, to where her free hand was clenched in her lap. “I told you. Fetched back to Boston. I fully expect the car to be waiting when we get back.”

“And after that?”

“That depends on my father.” She drew in a long breath, and let it all out, before continuing. “There’s nothing I can do about that now. And I don't want to think about it with you right here in front of me.” Her eyes, when she raised them, were hungry in a way Jean had never seen. The tears welling up in them didn't stop Emma from pulling on the bottle and Jean's hand wrapped around it, or from claiming her mouth when the redhead followed it into her lap.

Her kisses were hard enough to bruise, but Jean didn't try to slow her down. She shifted forward, twisting the bottle away and laying it aside again: free, both Emma's hands ran over the spaces between her ribs and the deep curve of her lower back. Some part of her heard the thump when it slid from the bed to the floor, but no part of her cared. Emma bore her back onto the mattress: this time, when desperation pinned her, Jean did nothing to stop it.

Feverish energy clawed at her throat and pounded in her heels, angry and empty and demanding release at last, and she poured her own desperation into Emma. They grabbed each other, pushing harder and deeper, taking everything and demanding more as they exorcised themselves on each other. The sirens outside blended with the ringing in Jean's ears and the throbbing of her heart, until she thought she might burst, until she almost hoped she would.

“Will we ever see each other again, do you think?” In the dark after, she pressed the words into Emma's neck, tracing patterns on the hand she held as their sweat cooled between them. Sticky and wet, Jean was reminded of that first time during the heatwave: it was a little uncomfortable, a little gross, and she reveled in it. Jean squeezed her thighs together, sliding them against each other to feel the mixture of her and Emma still slick there, shuddering with the sensation and burning it into her memory.

“I propose to haunt you continuously.” Emma turned her hand under Jean's, capturing it and raising it to her lips to press dry kisses against Jean's knuckles.

“Be serious.” The admonition carried no force. Jean's head throbbed from whiskey and fatigue, and she rested it against Emma's shoulder.

“Oh, don't lets. Couldn’t bear it.”

They were the last to get the news of dawn, the shoulder of Manhattan between them and the sun. Outside their door, the hotel was dark and silent as they crept out into the crystal morning. Wordless, bottle in one hand and Jean’s in the other, Emma pulled her away from the Village, across West Street to the pier. Early morning joggers and late night refugees ignored them as they walked to the end in silence.

There they stood, exposed to the morning light, watching the water; the rich smell of the harbor, part river and part rot, buffeted them, and Jean filled her lungs with it. The wind off the water cut the stink of the city, stung her eyes, the Statue of Liberty off in the distance as she looked south. She always forgot where exactly it was, so it always managed to surprise her when she saw it.

"If you're going to suggest we jump off a bridge, or run away to sea, now would be the time." Emma's voice didn't so much break the silence as insinuate itself into the ambient noise. She said it deliberately but without urgency, in the matter of fact tone of someone performing a necessary formality.

Jean didn't turn to look at the other girl, but she did consider her offer for a moment. "You were right. That's not for us."

"Gushingly glad you agree." Emma raised the bottle to her lips and took a pull; when it edged into Jean's peripheral vision, so did she. It did nothing for the taste in her mouth.

They stood there another minute, then another, staring at New Jersey, and then Emma hurled the almost-empty whiskey bottle into the Hudson and pivoted on her heel. Jean pulled herself away from the view a little more gently, knowing it wouldn't be the last time she saw it, and took the time to watch Emma move. Exhausted, emotionally bruised, and an ugly mixture of still drunk and already hungover if she felt anything like Jean did, the girl still walked like she had everyone's attention. Shaking herself, Jean caught up before the blonde got to the greenbelt, then settled in beside her as they made their way back uptown.

Later, after Emma was gone, Jean laid on her bed and hated everything. She hated all her classes in alphabetical order, she hated each individual tile in her ceiling, she hated the way Emma had stiffened at the sight of that big black Lincoln, and she hated her headache. She hated that she could still feel Emma's grip as it spasmed tight around her fingers, she hated the one broken spring in the mattress underneath her, she hated the way the subway smelled, and she hated everything she had ever eaten. She hated the pile of work on her desk, she hated the walk she'd taken around the block alone, she hated how ordinary the morning was, and she hated the color of the walls. She laid there and hated everything until she passed out, which thankfully did not take very long.

She made it a week, and then another, and then somehow it was December without her noticing. It felt like sleepwalking, like something else took over and got her through the days. Nothing seemed exactly real, but whatever it was that walked to her classes, ate her food, and turned in her assignments while she existed behind a veil was pretty good at it; leaning against the window as the train rocked her back up to Poughkeepsie, Jean realized that the semester was over and though she hadn't so much as thought about her grades in weeks, she wasn't worried.

The haze cleared three days before Christmas. She had gone into town on an errand for her dad, picking up replacement bulbs for him while he was on the roof with the boys, running late getting the lights up. As she left the hardware store, a boy walked past her smoking what was unmistakably a Camel. That was all it took, one deep lungful of someone else's smoke, and Jean slammed awake, cold toes in her wet sneakers and something heavy in her chest. She managed not to cry driving home, focusing on the snowy streets and what passed for holiday traffic in Annandale-on-Hudson, and then she had to get up the ladder onto the roof since the boys wouldn't come down and her dad had finally gotten around the chimney, and then her mother needed help with something in the kitchen, and in this manner she made it through dinner before she had to be alone.

Upstairs in the partially-dismantled time capsule of her bedroom, Jean wanted a cigarette. Instead, she plugged in the little record player that she'd reclaimed from her brothers, put on a Leonard Cohen record, and stretched out on the floor. She wished she'd seen the boy's face, going past the hardware store, hunched into his winter coat with a Camel clenched between his lips. She didn't know what possible difference it would have made, but she wished she'd had a good look at him. It was only in her imagination that the smell lingered, but conjured up by the sharp reek of smoke she remembered Emma staring at the men they passed on Hudson Street, and realized that she still didn't know why.

She'd forgotten to ask when they got the hotel room, occupied with other things, what it was that Emma had been looking for on the streets of the Village. Jean still didn't cry, didn't even name the heaviness that pinned her to the floor, turning the thought over and over in her mind. It was a little nothing, a question with no answer, a later that would never come. No forwarding address, no letters this time; no deliberately garish Christmas card for her mother to grimace politely at and tuck behind one of the others on the mantle downstairs. No more Emma. Whatever it had been, or hadn't, it was done.

When the needle bumped against the groove, she acknowledged that thought, and all the irresolvable emotions that came with it, and gently pushed it away. Restarting the record, Jean laid down once more and emptied her mind, letting the year drain away into the hooked rug and the hardwood beneath her. Deep breaths to the rhythm of the music slowly eased the tightness in her lungs; the rumble of Cohen's voice soothed her heart; hips and heels and head against the hard floor, she floated.

The scrape and thump of the needle pulled her back into the room, and when she got up to flip the record, she didn't return to the floor. Snowglare and starlight cast odd shadows through her open curtains before she flipped on her desk lamp and sat down, mind turned firmly toward the future. By the time the b-side had played through, Jean had a plan. It fit on an index card, would get her where she needed to go, and started in January 1976, the minute she got back to her room in New York City.

She had work to do.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The line Emma recites while smoking is Philip Larkin, from ["This Be The Verse."](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/48419/this-be-the-verse)

**Author's Note:**

> Minor characters are tagged for the sake of thoroughness. The title comes from the Old 97s; the epigraph is from Leonard Cohen.  
> Here we are at the end of this crooked little alley. I hope you enjoyed the walk. Remember: nothing's ever simple.


End file.
